21 Dec 2017

A top government official has refuted media reports that asylum seekers and refugees in Botswana are ill-treated.

Addressing the media in Gaborone on December 19, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security, Ms Segakweng Tsiane said the government was not aware of such inhumane allegations, adding that they were startling.

She also said it was apparent that the information provided to the reporters could have been distorted in order to pressurise government to consider their application for asylum status. Recently some asylum seekers lost their case at the Court of Appeal and were declared illegal immigrants.

However, some who were taken to the Dukwi Refugee Camp while preparations to send them back to their respective countries were being made were reported to have fled the camp to neighbouring countries. Ms Tsiane said they were still investigating to find out how they left the camp and where they went.

 
She said she was willing and prepared to receive any information detailing any form of brutality meted on the alleged victims. Some of them were said to had been brutalised at the Francistown Centre for Illegal Immigrants while demonstrating.

Meanwhile, she urged journalists to familiarise themselves with words such as asylum seeker and refugee, saying some of them tended to use the words interchangeably despite the fact that they meant two different things.

“Asylum seekers are those who want to be resettled while refugees are those already accommodated in a country and living in a camp and provided with food rations, clothing and education.

Ms Tsiane added that refugees in Botswana were provided with all these requirements. She explained that there were currently 2 137 refugees at the Dukwi Refugee Camp and 134 rejected asylum seekers at the centre for illegal immigrants and that none of them were living in prison cells. ENDS