More than 50,000 people without any passports recently intercepted and banned from entering South Africa

The Border Management Authority (BMA) on Friday said it intercepted 50,000 people without passports who were attempting to enter South Africa during the 2024/25 festive season period.

Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber who is also chairperson of the inter-ministerial consultative committee on border management and commissioner of the Border Management Authority (BMA) Dr Michael Masiapato addressed media in Pretoria to report back on the impact of festive season operations. 

In dealing with illegal migration and any other forms of illegality, Masiapato said the border guards participated in 237 joint law enforcement operations, conducted 3,252 vehicle patrols, 4,477 foot patrols and raided about 1,115 hotspot areas within the border law enforcement areas.

“During these operations, the border guards detected and apprehended about 58,394 individuals who were attempting to enter South Africa illegally. This is more than double the number of interceptions compared to the 27,005 of the 2023/2024 festive period,” said Masiapato.

“This increase in interception can be attributed to the deployment of drones which we borrowed from the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development,” he said.

“Of the 58,394 intercepted individuals, about 50,312 were undocumented – having no documents at all; 6,159 undesirables (people found to have overstayed in South Africa) and 1,923 inadmissible – people with invalid passports, fraudulent visas, no yellow fever certificates.”

The more than 58,000 intercepted individuals were fingerprinted and banned for re-entering South Africa for a period of five years. 

“Incrementally, the BMA has managed to stop and deport a total of 468,000 individuals who attempted to enter South Africa illegally since July 2022 following the deployment of the first contingent of border guards,” said Masiapato.

“Working with members of the South African Police Service, the border guards arrested about 322 travellers for various types of crimes such as possession of stolen vehicles, possession of contraband, drugs and illicit goods including ferrous and non-ferrous metals.” 

Of the 322 arrested individuals, 132 of them were already wanted suspects for having committed various types of crimes in South Africa.

In this festive period, Masiapato said about 19 vehicles, two taxis, a truck and two trailers were intercepted and stopped from being smuggled out of South Africa.

The intercepted vehicles were handed over to SAPS detectives for further investigations. 

“Incrementally, the BMA has managed to stop a total of 331 vehicles from being smuggled out of South Africa from July 2022 to date,” said Masiapato.

 In addition, the border guards intercepted illicit cigarettes to the value of R690 million during this festive period. Further, 900 kilogrammes of dagga worth over R300,000 was intercepted and destroyed.

About R470,000 worth of cannabis sticks were intercepted and destroyed.

Alcohol to the value of R100,000 was also seized and destroyed while bales of second-hand clothing worth R70,000 were also seized.

“Further, one diamond detector machine and different types of dangerous weapons such as knifes and pallet guns were also seized,” said Masiapato.

“Of serious concern is the interception of 28 fraudulent passports that were being used to impersonate South Africans as people move in and out of South Africa, this include the interception of nine fraudulent visas.”

Over the festive season, the Border Management Authority facilitated the legitimate movement of approximately 5,084,251 travellers across South Africa’s 71 ports of entry.

“This number represents an increase of 51,680 travellers compared to the 2023/2024 festive period. However, this number is still less than the pre-Covid number of about 6 million travellers,” said Masiapato.

In facilitating the major movement of travellers, Masiapato said the BMA processed over 395,189 private vehicles 12,974 mini-bus taxis, and 6,071 buses through its movement control system.

“Further, we processed over 9,491 aircrafts through our international airports and about 660 vessels across at our seaports. In addition, about 226 vessels were processed for crew changes through the off-port limit mechanism in our maritime environment (which means crew changes without a vessel docking at port),” said Masiapato. 

In the festive period, OR Tambo International Airport facilitated the majority of travellers at 1,065 636, followed by ⁠Beitbridge land port of entry to Zimbabwe at 645,590 travellers, then followed by Lebombo land port of entry to Mozambique at 571,131.

Compared to the 2023/2024 festive period, Lebombo experienced a decline of about 183 935 travellers.

“This can be ascribed to the intensive protests which disrupted the movement of both people and goods on the Maputo corridor. As such, Kosi Bay port of entry to Mozambique through Kwazulu-Natal saw a significant increase of traveller volume to about 63,326 compared to the 41,079 for 2023/2024 festive period. This was due to a number of travellers avoiding using Lebombo for entering Mozambique,” said Masiapato. 

During the festive period, the top 10 ports of entry that facilitated the majority of travellers are OR Tambo International Airport, Beit Bridge, Lebombo, Kopfontein, Oshoek, Cape Town International Airport, Maseru Bridge, Ficksburg, Cape Town Habour and Durban Habour.

These top 10 ports facilitated the majority of all travellers for the entire festive period which totals about 3,964 122 and the remaining 33 percent were facilitated by the remainder of the 61 other ports of entry across South Africa.

The BMA’s intensive festive plan which was rolled out from December 6 to January 18. The plan ran for a period of 44 days, of which 26 days were for the exit leg which ran from December 6 to 31, and 18 days which were for the return leg which ran from January 1 to 18 2025.

jonisayi.maromo@iol.co.za

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