We are ready to die outside UN: Refugee
The high court in Pretoria has given the refugees staging a protest outside the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNCHR) in Pretoria three days to vacate the area.
Refugees from different parts of the continent have been camping outside UNCHR since of October of this year.
The refugees claim their lives are in danger in South Africa due to xenophobic attacks and want the refugee agency to resettle them outside of the country.
The sit-in by refugees outside the UN offices took place a few weeks after the attacks on foreign nationals.
The application to remove the refugees outside the UN offices was brought by the Waterkloof Homeowners' Association and Brooklyn and Eastern Areas Citizens' Association.
Judgment in the application was handed down by Judge Natvarlal Ranchod on Wednesday.
"The 1st respondents are ordered to disperse…and to vacate the affected are within three days of this order having been effected," says Ranchod.
Ranchod also ordered the City of Tshwane, the metro police and the Department of Home Affairs to start the process of identifying refugees camping outside the UN offices.
The city and the department are expected to head back to court on November 21 to provide feedback to the court on the operation of identifying the refugees outside the UNCHR.
Ranchod says those who are found to have contravened the country's laws should be arrested.
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The leader of the refugee group, Alex Mongo Nkoy, says although they will obey the court order, they don't want to be resettled inside South Africa.
"If the police and the metro police come to shoot us on the way we are ready to die, and if they want to shoot us the at UNCHR, we are ready to die. We told the police last time if they want to come, they must come with coffins, so we may never leave there alive.”
Nkoy says they would rather walk to Namibia than to shelter in South Africa.
Listen to Nkoy below: