Xenophobia: South Africa may place 10-year travel ban on evacuated Nigerians

recent Xenophobic attack in SOUTH AFRICA is Probably taking another turn as South Africa threatens to place a bio-metric search on anyone coming back into the country.

The flight which was scheduled for 9 am to bring in departures from South Africa to Nigeria did not depart the OR Tambo International Airport until 4 pm, following various obstacles reportedly imposed by the South African airport and immigration officials. 

The plane eventually arrived in Nigeria with 178 persons at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos at 9.34 pm.

Investigation by Saturday PUNCH revealed that Pretoria was not happy over the evacuation operation which senior Foreign Affairs Ministry officials described as “a yellow card to Nigeria-South Africa relations.”

This, it was gathered, was seen by SA authorities as a thumbs down, hence the decision to mount impediments to frustrate the evacuation exercise.

Our correspondent gathered on Friday that 84 Nigerians had boarded the aircraft at the Johannesburg airport, when the SA immigration officials announced that they must carry out a biometric capture of all returning individuals.

It was learnt that all the people on board were deplaned for the biometric exercise with the immigration officials spending about 10 minutes to capture each person.

Officials who participated in the clearance process at the airport explained that the immigration service cancelled valid South African visas possessed by Nigerians during the biometric exercise.