Somalia — Botswana government has rejected the Somali refugees who left from South Africa to enter its country and returned back to South Africa, Shabelle’s Ahad reported from Cape Town.

Reports from South Africa say that the Somali refugees were about 100 and member of other Somali refugees who were in the refugee comps of South Africa but left from there as the discriminating violence started in South Africa in the last year.

The refugees said that they were detained in border between Botswana and South Africa for at least 11 days and lately returned back to South Africa when Botswana government refused to welcome them.

“We lived in Garol Show refugee comp in South Africa for one year. But we left it as the discriminating clashes were continuing in South Africa on May 2008. Those clashes caused loss of the properties of the Somali businessmen in South Africa,” said Abas Nunow one of the Somali refugees. We need to be returned back to our country, he added.

The Somali migrants told Shabelle radio that they met intimidations from the Botswana soldiers who committed brutal actions against the Somalia migrants adding that they tortured a pregnant Somali woman who bled in border between the two countries and lastly operated in South Africa.

Abdi Hassan Ares, one of the Somali refugees said that they had been released from a jail in Botswana after more efforts made by the UN and returned to another refugee comp in South Africa.

The South African government said earlier that the Somali migrants could not be retuned back to home due to the conflicts in Somalia but the most problems have the businessmen of Somalia in South Africa who are committed actions of killing, torturing, and blackmailing in the country.

Source: shabelle

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