Pretoria - There is no safe haven for James Biamungu*, his wife and their five children.
After a nightmarish 11 years of beatings, torture and death threats in three countries, Biamangu and his wife were arrested in Pretoria on Monday night - and now face being deported.
Biamungu and his wife, Tutsis from the DRC, had been sleeping on the pavement outside the UN building with other refugees before being taken to Pretoria Central Prison.
They have been separated from their children since June 3, when the entire family was first rounded up outside the UN building. The three older children were taken to Soshanguve and the two younger ones to Ga-Rankuwa by the Department of Social Development.
The parents have seen them once since being released. They went back to sleeping on the pavement until Monday’s re-arrest.
Biamungu fled to Zimbabwe in 2005 following brutal attacks by Congolese soldiers. The family was given refugee status and placed in a camp full of Hutus, who threatened their lives. They approached the UN High Commission for Refugees in Harare repeatedly for protection, only for Biamungu and his then pregnant wife to be brutally beaten in front of their three young children.
Biamungu was advised by Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights to flee to South Africa to seek the protection of the UNHCR regional office. Here, he and his family have slept on the pavement outside the UNHCR offices for much of the past two years, destitute, surviving on donations of food and blankets from local churches.
Their older children: ages 7, 9 and 11 have never spent a day in a school classroom.
Read more: Harrowing tale of family’s search for safety
“I had to help them as it seems to me that dogs are treated better in South Africa than these human beings, who are fellow Africans. Dogs have a right to food and shelter from the SPCA,” said Margaret Reiner, one of the retired church volunteers who has been providing Biamungu with food.
The Star approached the UNHCR for comment on the allegations, but the organisation does not comment on individual cases.
South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Fatima Chohan has become personally involved following The Star’s intervention, working to get the family reunited as soon as possible.
She said the UNHCR in Pretoria should have provided the family with adequate food and shelter while they were awaiting the outcome of their resettlement hearings and taken responsibility for the family from the moment they crossed the border at Musina in 2010 - and not pushed the problem on to the South African authorities.
“As they had been given refugee status in Zimbabwe, the family were the responsibility of the UNHCR, which was obligated to ensure their protection,” she said.
At the time of publication, the couple remained in detention. Biamungu is ill. He has received no attention. The churches have again been asked to assist.
*Not his real name