Pakistanis among top four foreign nationals, seeking shelter in South Africa as Home Department of South Africa faces a backlog of 103,410 cases of asylum applications, a spokesman for the Director General said.
In a statement, carried by South African media on Wednesday, spokesperson Nkosana Sibuyi said the top four countries represented were the Democratic Republic of the Congo with 13,376 cases or 12.2 percent followed by Zimbabwe with 11,026 cases or 10.1 percent of cases.
These countries were followed by Ethiopia with 9,341 cases or 8.5 percent and Pakistan with 9,245 cases or 8.4 percent. The department said the influx of asylum seekers, lack of capacity and inadequate availability of resources to facilitate the registration of the asylum seekers had created the backlog.
The department acknowledged that the backlog had resulted in some instances to unlawful arrests, detention and deportation of legitimate applicants.
"As a result of all these challenges, the Ministry of Home Affairs established a departmental steering committee to come up with practical sustainable solutions that will ensure that all asylum applications, dating back to 1998, are immediately dealt with." Four new centres have been acquired to deal with the backlog in the Western Cape, Gauteng, Kwazulu-Natal and Eastern Cape provinces.