The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) moved its refugee reception centre (RRC) operations into a new tailor-made building in Musina last week.

The specially erected building is situated between the Musina post office and the local NTK-branch, alongside a busy one-way street, which runs parallel to the town’s main street, National Road. This is the fourth address of the RRC in Musina.

When the operation initially started at the DHA office in National Road, the crowd of several hundreds of asylum seekers, eagerly in search of assistance, caused a disruptive congestion in the central business district. Mobile offices were then moved to the municipal show grounds in the industrial area on the southwestern border of the town.

Several thousands of asylum seekers then regularly crowded onto the parking area of the show grounds, queuing-up to be processed for asylum papers. The total lack of shelter and care giving to the crowd of predominantly destitute asylum seekers, together with the lengthy waiting time for the issuing of documents, led to the erection of informal shelters at the parking area and on adjoining pavements and nearby open spaces.

To alleviate the sub-human conditions under which asylum seekers had to survive, the international organization Doctors Without Borders supplied basic amenities like toilets, clean drinking water and ablution facilities at the parking area. Rapidly growing overcrowding at the show grounds caused unsanitary conditions, leading up to the harsh mass eviction of people and the destruction of temporary shelters.

The department’s RRC was later moved from the show grounds to temporary premises on the large vacant stand of a hardware business some 100 meters northward from the show grounds, close to the western bank of the main street, where a large hall was available inside security walls and fences. International aid organizations had sufficient space on these premises to assist the asylum seekers with needed information, medical care and food parcels for their journey on foot further south.

Last week’s move from these premises to the newly erected building was greeted with serious reservations from the business community, fearing renewed disruption from crowds gathering on the long island separating the one-way street from the main street.

Last Friday, there were no immediate signs of such congestion. The scene at the new RRC was remarkably quiet.