Nine allegedly illegal immigrants were arrested during a roadblock overseen by police minister Bheki Cele on the N2 between East London and King William's Town on Thursday.
Five Zimbabweans and four Mozambicans will be taken to the home affairs department’s Lindela Repatriation Centre in Krugersdorp, Gauteng, before probably being deported.
Cele said the process would take place only after home affairs officials had verified the status of the immigrants.
“Some claimed they had the documents while some misplaced them but if those documents don’t come we will have to send them to their countries,” said Cele.
Two of the immigrants were found in a delivery van of a leading furniture store, one of them being the driver; another was found driving a construction company van, while the rest were arrested inside a taxi, said East London home affairs immigration control officer Mzikayise Mhlana.
“The three were on duty working in the country without work permits,” said Mhlana.
The men were arrested by a multi-departmental team consisting of police, home affairs immigration officers and traffic officers.
The roadblock was organised as part of a nationwide Safer Festive Season operation launched in Port Elizabeth by Cele on November 1.
Mhlana said the men, aged between 20 and 35, were arrested in stop-and-search operations. Mhlana said the immigrants did not produce visitors’ permits, work permits, student documents or asylum-seeking documents. “They were arrested from two trips.
The first batch were arrested at 8.30am this morning and were all travelling in the direction of King William's Town,” said Mhlana.
Mhlana said his office was successfully “cleaning” the streets of East London, which he claimed were flooded with illegal immigrants.
“Almost on a daily basis we arrest people with no documentation,” Mhlana said.
He said many of the immigrants were fleeing war-torn countries while the majority were looking for greener pastures.
He believes there was a sudden influx of illegal immigrants during the festive season.
In a wide-ranging interview with the media, Cele raised concern about a critical shortage of police officers, which he said had a negative impact on police visibility.
Cele announced that national police commissioner General Khehla Sitole planned to increase the national intake of trainees from 2018's 3,000 to 5,000 in 2019. “In that way we will have higher police visibility on a permanent basis.”
Cele said according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, for any country to have an efficient police force, there should be one police officer for every 220 civilians.“
In SA there is one officer per 385 civilians “which is almost double”.
Eastern Cape provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Liziwe Ntshinga declared the 2018 festive season a success. “It had very minimum incidents. This is one of the quietest and safest Christmas seasons. Even at our beaches there were very few drownings. There was police visibility all over the province.”..