The Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI) has denounced a directive by Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police responsible for operations Casper Chalera, ordering officers to start spotting or identifying refugees and asylum seekers living outside Dzaleka camp ahead of the November 30, 2022 and January 31, 2023 deadlines for refugees and asylum seekers to relocate to the camp from rural and urban centres respectively.
In a statement made available to us, Namiwa said such sentiments may culminate into state sponsored xenophobic attacks on refugees and asylum seekers in Malawi.
“Simply put, CDEDI finds such an order highly insensitive and ill-timed owing to the conduct of the bad apples that seem to have hijacked the police service.
“This is a blank cheque to these bad apples to start looting and plundering innocent foreign nationals’ property in the name of carrying out such an order on one hand, while some criminal elements outside the service may also take advantage of the same to victimize innocent people.
“Hon. Jean Sendeza (Homeland Security Minister) and Chalera should be reminded that refugees and asylum upseekers are human beings, hence have basic human rights and ought to be treated with dignity.
“Although, there is nothing illegal with the exercise, CDEDI and all well-meaning Malawians fault both the approach and timing. Malawi should channel available resources and energy to find solutions to the multiple challenges facing millions of Malawians such as food shortage in prisons, sky-rocketing maize prices and fertilizer, not spending the same on a non-priority area,” said Namiwa
Meanwhile, CDEDI has challenged government to suspend the whole exercise pending an all-inclusive stakeholders meeting where all the contentious issues shall be discussed and ironed out and a human rights based approach shall be devised.
On August 12 this year, the High Court allowed the government to immediately relocate the refugees and asylum seekers to Dzaleka camp.
After the directive, government had set deadlines to relocate refugees in urban areas by November 30, 2022 and those in rural areas by February 1, 2023.
