Foreigners won't enter Lindela
2008-07-24 14:10
Special Report
A third man has been arrested for the killing of Siphiwe Madondo in May 2008, at the start of a wave of xenophobic attacks throughout the country.
Johannesburg - About 415 foreigners who were transported from the Glenanda camp in Johannesburg have refused to enter the Lindela Repatriation Centre, the Department of Home Affairs said on Thursday.
Spokesperson Cleo Mosana said some foreigners chose to process their documents out of the centre and some already had legal papers allowing them to be in the country.
"They have been released and are free to go wherever they want to because they refused to come into the centre where the other foreigners are being housed."
Mosana said that the other 383 foreigners at Lindela were being prepared for deportation.
"Deportation is a long administrative process and only when it is completed will deportation begin. Right now I do not know when the process will be completed," she said.
The 415 stranded foreigners made their own decision to leave. "They were not chased."
Gauteng government spokesperson Thabo Masebe said the foreigners were taken to the Lindela centre on Tuesday night but refused to co-operate with home affairs officials.
"We released them and they are not the responsibility of the Gauteng government anymore.
"They are free to go wherever they want," he said.
- SAPA