Karabo Rammutla
Eight undocumented immigrants were arrested at OR Tambo using the fire access hatches in the walls for a purpose they were definitely not designed to be used for.
This comes after an airport worker saw what looked like a human head in the crawl spaces behind a wall and alerted police. A social media video went viral on Friday of people climbing out of an access door in the wall used to access fire hydrants.
When police investigated, they discovered eight illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and Pakistan hiding inside the crawl spaces.
The discovery has highlighted an immigration crisis in the country because South Africa no longer issues transit visas.
“This makes it easy for foreigners to come into the country illegally,” Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said during a visit to the busy airport. He was joined by Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula.
Motsoaledi said the eight people flew into OR Tambo and were supposed to fly out to Eswatini. But instead of heading to the transit lounge to wait for a plane to Eswatini, they took what he described as a detour.
Mbalula said the illegal foreign nationals arrived on a Qatar Airways flight from Doha.
He said the airport is a strategic asset for South Africa and constitutes one of the major economic corridors connecting the country to the rest of the world.
“It is a national key point in terms of the National Key Points Act. It is for these reasons that South Africa holds a good record of compliance with the ICAO Standards and Recommended Practices,” he said, referring to the UN’s international civil aviation agency.
“This is a record we intend to guard jealously and is the reason we will not tolerate any acts of illegality within our aviation space.”
