Ministry of Homeland Security has asked refugees living outside Dzaleka Refuge Camp in Dowa District to voluntarily return to their designated place of residence in Malawi.

Minister of Homeland Security Jean Sendeza said this during a press conference she co-hosted with Minister of Information and Digitisation Gospel Kazako in Lilongwe on Wednesday.

She said the process has resumed following the lifting of a court order that stopped government from implementing the decision to move the refugees to the camp.

“I am not making a fresh call, but an extension to what was given on August 12,” said Sendeza.

Sendeza: I am not making a fresh call

Earlier, government issued a statement instructing refugees residing in rural areas to return to Dzaleka by the end of November this year while those living in urban areas are expected to move before the end of January next year.

Sendeza was also quick to say that government and other stakeholders are looking into a situation where Dzaleka would not be able to absorb all refugees in the country.

The minister said that by the end of October a population census will be undertaken to establish the exact number of refugees in the country.

But Innocent Magambi, a refugees’ advocate in the country who was himself a refugee from Burundi born at a camp in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), said in an interview the Malawi Government was being retrogressive by relocating refugees to Dzaleka.

He said this was a departure from government’s commitment that it would integrate the refugees into national development activities.

Magambi said: “In 2019, Minister of Homeland Security made a pledge at a conference in Geneva to incorporate refugees into national development and have the 1989 Refugees Act reviewed among other things and these are yet to be done.”

But Kazako said the measures were meant to ensure order and rule of law.

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