Due to the switch over of the DHA office for asylum seekers to Nyanga Refugee Reception Centre (in the township of Nyanga) from the office on Barrack Street in Cape Town, we at PASSOP have decided to document the transition and investigate the dangerous, inhumane and treacherous conditions asylum seekers have notified us as concerns they collectively share.   

 

Members from PASSOP and volunteers will arrive later in the evening via personal transport to begin the documentation process through the production of a list. The list will consist of the names, nationality, date of arrival, the number of days people in the queue have tried to receive assistance, reasons for non-assistance, and contact information of people in the queue.

 

Throughout the evening and the duration of PASSOP members and the volunteers stay, video cameras will be used to capture and provide any evidence of claims we have received which include but are not limited to the ill-treatment of people seeking asylum by DHA staff, Xenophobic attacks by residence of Nyanga Township, and other forms of inhumane treatment. Footage taken will be inserted on the PASSOP website to facilitate a better exchange with the public. The footage taken will also be employed to substantiate the claims made by parties associated with PASSOP, of systemic faults in the Department of Home Affairs.

 

The documentation process may usher in calls for the DHA to stop its ‘bureaucratic violence’ against refugees; however this is not the purpose of the video coverage at Nyanga Reception Centre.