JOHANNESBURG - Close to 5,000 travellers were intercepted by the Border Management Authority (BMA) during the Easter long weekend period.
The majority of them were undocumented migrants.
This is according to BMA Commissioner, Dr Michael Masiapato.
“Out of these 4,763 intercepted travellers, about 3,170 were undocumented persons, 998 were undesirables 595 were found to be inadmissible into the country for various reasons.
“Some people were in possession of fraudulent visas, or they just failed to produce yellow fever certificates, while coming from yellow fever-infested jurisdictions. Some were just in possession of invalid travel documents. All travellers intercepted without documents were fingerprinted.”
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Masiapato said they had to declare them as "undesirables" for them to be denied from re-entering the country for the next five years.
“They were effectively deported to their respective countries in accordance with the provisions of the Immigration Act. As in the previous period, the majority of the intercepted individuals were Basotho Nationals, followed by Mozambicans, Zimbabweans, Swati Nationals, Malawians, as well as the Ethiopians."