Botswana is concerned over influx of refugees from Zimbabwe and S.Africa

Botswana has expressed concern over an influx of asylum seekers who fled from countries, including 700 refugees from neighboring Zimbabwe and hundreds more from South Africa, where they had already been granted refugee status.
Those who have arrived from neighboring Zimbabwe were citing poor conditions at the refugee camp, while others have come from South Africa said they were driven out by xenophobic attacks. Botswana’s Minister of Justice, Machana Shamukuni, said on Tuesday (18 October) the country has seen the arrival of “onward movement” asylum seekers. He said Botswana expressed its concern over the issue at a recent executive committee meeting of the UN refugee agency in Geneva, Switzerland. “Once you are accorded international protection, the expectation … is that you should stay there so that you are protected, you enjoy protection there, but when you proceed to another country and seek protection again when you are accorded protection in another jurisdiction, then it becomes problematic.”
The majority of the 688 recent arrivals, originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, more recently lived at the Tongogara Refugee Camp in Zimbabwe. The minister added that others are Somalis who left South Africa due to xenophobic attacks. “Issues of housing, education, issues of access to health. These are the reasons they state,“ Shamukuni said. “But also you will recall, in South Africa, there was the issue of xenophobia. It drove out a lot of them, particularly the Somalis.” Due to its isolated location, Botswana’s refugee population has never been high, and is now down to 1,019 from more than 3,000 three years ago, as the UN refugee agency scales down operations. The majority of refugees, mostly from Namibia and Zimbabwe, were repatriated over the last two years.