Latest news with #SouthAfricanDevelopmentCommunity
IOL News
17-05-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
More than 12 000 foreign nationals awaiting trial amid overcrowding crisis
The number of foreign prisoners waiting for trial stands at 12037 (19 percent) of the 61000 remand population in the South African prisons. Image: Picture: Phando Jikelo/Independent Newspapers Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald has disclosed that 12 037 foreign nationals are currently awaiting trial in prisons across the country for the contravention of the Immigration Act. The number of foreign prisoners waiting for trial constituted just 19% of the remand population in the country's prisons. Groenewald revealed this when asked during a question and answer session in the National Assembly this week whether he intended to initiate bilateral engagements with the South African Development Community (SADC) countries to deport offenders who were foreign nationals to alleviate correctional facilities from the overcrowding. 'Currently there are no bilateral agreements with neighboring countries due to the fact that South Africa does not have an enabling domestic legislation to regulate and facilitate the transfer of sentenced foreign offenders, including South Africans incarcerated in foreign countries, to serve their sentences in their countries of the region,' he said. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ This takes place as the country's prisons are bursting at the seams with sentenced prisoners totaling 104 000 inmates in facilities that cater for 108 000 beds. 'There are enough beds for the sentenced inmates in our facilities. Our problem comes with the remand detainees, not only the foreign remand detainees, but all remand detainees, and then we talk about almost 61 000 remand detainees,' Groenewald said. He observed that there were people who have been in remand for more than 10 years and they still have not had their criminal cases finalised. 'We are looking at the matter, and of course, the solution will be that we also have remand detainees who couldn't afford a bail of around about R100. There is about 1 227 who couldn't afford a bail of less than R1000.' Groenewald stated that the implementation of the Immigration Act in relation to deportation of those not entitled to stay in the country fell within the scope of the Department of Home Affairs. 'The Department of Correctional Services is responsible for identifying foreign nationals in its detention facilities and reporting such individuals to the Department of Home Affairs. The Department of Home Affairs then establishes the nationality of such offenders and initiates the deportation of those who stay in the Republic of South Africa.' Asked if he has engaged fellow ministers in the security cluster to find a way of dealing with legislation and other things to minimize this issue of overcrowding, Groenewald said there was quite a lot of progress. 'We already started last year. There is a process to amend the Criminal Procedure Act, and part of that will also be to amend the legislation in such a way that we have legislation that will make it possible to deport of these illegals back to their countries of origin,' he said. But, Groenewald indicated that there was a willingness from Lesotho to see where they could exchange and deport South African's prisoners in their country with their nationals to their home country. 'In Namibia, same situation occurs there. So the good news is that we are in a process, and I would like to see that we take all steps possible to enhance it.' He stressed that South Africa must have enabling legislation to do so. 'At this stage, we lack that legislation, and that's why I said we're in the process to see how we can make legislation.' Meanwhile, Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber said the deportation of illegal foreign nationals continued with the available funding and the deportees with financial means engaged in self-deportation. Schreiber said subject to the ongoing budget process, the intended budget allocation for 2025-26 was R23.2 million, up from R21.3m allocated the previous year. 'The number of deportations annually has increased from 14 589 in 2020 and 39,672 in 2023 to 46,898 in the previous financial year. This is an 18% increase year on year and it does means South Africa now does deportation than countries like France and Germany combined,' he said.
Washington Post
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Rebels agree to a ceasefire with African coalition troops departing from eastern Congo
GOMA, Congo — The M23 rebels in control of key areas of eastern Congo agreed Friday to a ceasefire with African coalition peacekeepers who have announced their withdrawal even as the conflict between the insurgents and Congo 's government continues. The rebels and troops from the South African Development Community, or SADC, said in a joint news release that they would work together to rebuild the airport in the eastern hub of Goma, which was damaged when rebels took over, so that the SADC troops could depart the country in an orderly way.
The Independent
28-03-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Rebels agree to a ceasefire with African coalition troops departing from eastern Congo
The M23 rebels in control of key areas of eastern Congo agreed Friday to a ceasefire with African coalition peacekeepers who have announced their withdrawal even as the conflict between the insurgents and Congo 's government continues. The rebels and troops from the South African Development Community, or SADC, said in a joint news release that they would work together to rebuild the airport in the eastern hub of Goma, which was damaged when rebels took over, so that the SADC troops could depart the country in an orderly way. The force of several thousand peacekeeping troops from South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania had been sent to eastern Congo by the SADC in 2023 to help the Congolese government pacify a mineral-rich region plagued by various insurgencies. The troops failed to stop the lightning assaults starting in January by the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels that have claimed several key cities and that left several peacekeepers dead, eroding support for the mission in the donor countries. The SADC leadership announced their withdrawal earlier this month. The rebels and SADC troops gave no timetable for the withdrawal under their accord. The SADC troops "will be leaving via Goma airport, but it has to be repaired before they can leave,' M23 spokesman Lawrence Kanyuka said in an interview with The Associated Press. Kanyuka called it a 'historic day," and said that the agreement with the SADC mission reflected an awareness that the conflict must be resolved politically not through fighting. 'We thank SADC today for understanding that there is no military solution to this conflict. They came today, and we talked about dialogue,' Kanyuka said, adding that their withdrawal was 'one of the prerequisites' for dialogue. Kanyuka accused Congolese troops of violating ongoing ceasefire negotiations and said that M23 had requested that the SADC 'talk to Kinshasa to get them to stop and adhere to this ceasefire, which we have respected until now.' .The SADC mission was part of a myriad of forces operating in the mineral-rich region plagued by decades of armed violence. They include Congolese government soldiers, foreign mercenaries, a United Nations peacekeeping force and more than 100 groups that are fighting for power, land and valuable mineral resources. Others try to defend their communities. Some armed groups have been accused of mass killings targeting ethnic groups The M23 rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, and at times have vowed to march as far as Congo's capital, Kinshasa, over 1,000 miles away. Rwanda has rejected charges, including by the Congolese government and U.N experts, that it backs M23 in eastern Congo, a region that is now one of the world's largest humanitarian crises with more than 7 million people displaced. The withdrawal of SADC troops comes after the M23 took control of eastern Congo's main city of Goma and seized the second largest city, Bukavu, in offensives over the past two months. Fourteen South African soldiers, and at least three from Malawi were killed in January in the fighting. The United Nations later evacuated a group of critically injured South African
