Malawi a Transit Point for Somali and Ethiopan Refugees

In Malawi, our staff are rushing to install additional facilities for 3,000 refugees at Dzaleka refugee camp following a government order to close the only other refugee camp in the country. Although UNHCR will take until July to move all the refugees and asylum seekers from Luwani camp, it will have some of the necessary facilities in place in Dzaleka by the government's deadline of May 31.

The government said its decision at the end of last month to close Luwani was prompted by increasing concern at the number of asylum seekers who arrive from Ethiopia and Somalia, claim asylum, stay a few days at Luwani and then disappear over the border into Mozambique en route to South Africa. It termed these arrivals - from what it sees as the unstable Horn of Africa - a threat to its own security.

Luwani is located near the southern border with Mozambique, while Dzaleka is near the capital, Lilongwe, in the centre of the country. The government believes placing all asylum seekers in Dzaleka, further from the border, will reduce the number using Malawi purely as a transit route for heading toward South Africa.
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