Government says there is need to exercise caution on longstanding calls to repatriate refugees and asylum seekers currently residing in the country. 

According to Senior Legal Advisor in the office of Commissioner for Refugees and the Refugee Status Determination Supervisor Ivy Chihana, much as repatriation is needed, the move is not automatic.

He said: “Repatriation isn’t an automatic procedure, with regards to repatriation we have to follow procedures and I will put it to the Malawian nation that one cannot be a refugee for the rest of their lives.

“For the people that need to be repatriated back to their home countries all that is here to understand is the need for procedure.”

Chihana said all necessary procedures guiding both local and international instruments need to be considered before the said people are repatriated.

“We are a member State and a party to the 1951 Convention on the Protection of Refugees, so we follow everything else that is in the Convention in as far as repatriation is concerned,” she said.

She added that authorities need to understand that refugee status is not a lifetime situation.

Chihana said: “They are other people that have overstayed yes, but the overstaying is not highlighted by an individual, we follow protocol and procedures.”

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as of December 2021, Malawi hosts 52,678 persons of concern (PoCs) to UNHCR.

The majority of the PoCs live in the Dzaleka Refugees Camp located in the Dowa district, some 41 kilometres away from the capital Lilongwe.