Durban - As the Syrian refugee crisis escalates, South African diplomats and politicians have mixed reactions to whether we should open our doors to the refugees.
While some believe that we should accommodate them, others are saying that we do not have the capacity to do so.
On Tuesday, President Jacob Zuma blamed the West for the crisis when he addressed a room full of ambassadors, cabinet ministers and the media.
He said that the only lasting solution was to stop the war in Syria and launched a blistering attack on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) members, saying their intervention in Libya to remove then-president Muammar Gaddafi had contributed to the problem.
The DA’s deputy spokeswoman on international relations, Sandy Kalyan, said that although it was a major humanitarian crisis, SA did not have the capacity to take in refugees from the Middle East.
“We already have problems of our own to deal with. We have our neighbouring African countries to worry about first before we deal with the Syrian crisis. Furthermore, these refugees don’t want to come to SA. We can assist them as a country in other ways.
“The DA fully supports helping them in terms of finances and aid, and we will stand by the SA government on this. However, we cannot afford to take them in because we don’t have the capacity to do this,” said Kalyan.
Albert Mncwango, spokesman on international relations for the IFP, said that SA needed to review its foreign policies on refugees.
“We already have to deal with refugees from the rest of Africa yet we still don’t have coherent policies in place when it comes to this. They need to be reviewed before we even consider helping to solve a crisis as big as the Syrian crisis,” said Mncwango.
Iraqi Ambassador to SA, Dr Hushaim al-Alawi,s said that countries were helping to address the refugee crisis on different levels. Some were addressing it financially, some in terms of aid and others in terms of asylum.
“I think South Africa too is doing their bit. When we look at if we should open our doors to these refugees, we need to ask ourselves if there is a desire for them to want to come to SA. There is no desire from Syrians to flock to South Africa, they are opting to go to places like Europe hence the issue of taking in refugees has not been a big talking point,” said al-Alawi.
Sunday Tribune