Durban refugees may request Lindela move: Home Affairs
Durban refugees may request Lindela move: Home Affairs. Skip to content Menu Home | Durban refugees may request Lindela move: Home Affairs A group of refugees, asylum seekers and civil society groups gather at the entrance of the Department of Home Affairs Refugee Reception Office in Durban Image Credits : Taliesha Naidoo Mlondi Radebe 15 September 2026, 16:46 [SAST] The Department of Home Affairs says asylum seekers and refugees who wish to move to the Lindela Repatriation Centre in Gauteng may contact its offices for assistance.
What happened
After spending four months living on the pavement outside the Durban Home Affairs offices, 274 foreign nationals boarded five buses bound for the Lindela Repatriation Centre in Krugersdorp. This follows the departure of 274 foreign nationals who were bused to the Krugersdorp facility after living outside the Durban Home Affairs office for four months. Wivine Bahati, who chose to relocate to Lindela, says the move offers immediate relief regarding safety and shelter after months of uncertainty. KwaZulu-Natal Home Affairs Provincial Manager Cyril Mncwabe confirmed that officials negotiated with the group for months before arranging transport.
According to a statement issued by refugee leaders, 200 individuals have chosen to remain in Durban. The group will stay at the facility while the government negotiates options with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. I’m just glad that my people can get to rest and get to rethink better decisions for their life so that they don’t have to blame anyone for not giving them enough time to recuperate, to rethink because it’s been traumatizing being here the past four months. ” “It’s better for us to leave, so we can be safe in Lindela. ” says Princess Adjei, a refugee.
The wider picture
There is a mother who’s got a sick child that had been confirmed by the doctor that, that child cannot travel and we then agreed that we will remove the mother from the list and we were left with 280. Meanwhile, local non-governmental organisations are currently seeking shelter solutions for the remaining individuals who have relocated to Durban’s Bulwer Park. “The cause that resulted us in being here is still there, it’s still going around, and the unrest hasn’t rested yet.
However, 200 people elected to remain behind, hoping to be reintegrated into local communities. He added that two individuals were excluded from the transport list after being arrested following clashes with protesters two weeks ago. “Five buses were made available to come and deal with a number of 282 people that we had on our data base as people who supposed to go as of yesterday. The final figure was 278 and how we arrived at 278. We also had another two people that could not be part of the process of leaving today, those two are the people after the confrontation that took place with the people who were marching against illegal immigrants, they were arrested and they are still going through the processes of the law,” says Mncwabe.
What has been reported
The SA First Forum has welcomed the relocation, noting that while foreign nationals have human rights, living on public pavements contravened city bylaws and degraded living conditions. “As the SA First Forum we advocate for the human rights of all African people to be respected, we advocate for the human dignity to be restored not only for South Africans. For kids to be sleeping here for more than 3 months, for mothers to be sleeping here for more than three months, bathing on the street; it is unfair.
“It is a violation of their human rights. ” says Xolani Zuma of SA First Forum. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.