Refugee Minitries Centre

Refugee Ministries Centre was founded in 2004 as an Ecumenical Ministry to refugees between Central Methodist Mission (CMM) and St Mary’s Anglican Cathedral in Johannesburg to respond to the post 1994 influx of refugees into South Africa, mainly from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Pakistan, Algeria, Kashmir and recently Zimbabwe.

The Church in South Africa played a very significant role in the fight against the apartheid regime by standing alongside the marginalized.  While South Africa was in the midst of celebrating the end of apartheid, the influx of refugees and asylum seekers presented new challenges which called for new response strategies from the church as the new government had other important and urgent national issues to deal with. Indeed, it was and is still a huge challenge as many refugees and asylum seekers arrive empty handed and some on the verge of starvation.

Lack of infrastructure and proper systems to assist the newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa was a big challenge. This background prompted RMC social activities which were mainly targeted towards providing the basic requirements. RMC later learnt that refugees and asylum seekers did not only face challenges in accessing asylum documents but were also experiencing abuse by government officials and law enforcement agents at an alarming level.  The rights of refugees and asylum seekers were not guaranteed and protected exposing foreign nationals to all sorts of abuse and violations. They still continue to face challenges which include; failure to access asylum process at the Department of Home Affairs (DHA), broad Human Rights discrimination and lack of social infrastructure to cater for needs like food and shelter.  This and several other factors inform the RMC programme activities today.

A personal reflection by DR E Nyakarashi .