Pretoria - James Biamungu - the Congolese refugee in search of human security - woke up in a bed on Saturday morning. It was the first time in months that he had not slept on a plank in the Pretoria Central Prison detention cells or on the pavement outside the offices of the UN building in Pretoria.
The Department of Home Affairs released him from detention at 9pm on Friday into the care of his lawyer following an 11th hour agreement that halted his deportation to Zimbabwe.
Biamungu and his wife, Annaline, were overcome with emotion as they left the prison after a harrowing few days of threats to deport them.
The couple fled persecution in the Democratic Republic of Congo and were given refugee status in 2005 by Zimbabwe, where they stayed in the Tongogara refugee camp.
But beatings and persecution by Hutu refugees in the camp and by the Zimbabwean police drove them to leave for South Africa.
Lawyer Nyaradzo Chiwa has saved the day for the Biamungus by convincing the Department of Home Affairs of the grave danger the family would face if they returned to Zimbabwe.
Having fled persecution in Zimbabwe herself, Chiwa was more than aware of the revenge that could have been exacted on James Biamungu for having exposed the beatings he and his wife received at the hands of Zimbabwean police in the offices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Harare, while under the auspices of a UNHCR protection officer.
The Biamungu family, who are Tutsis, had fled after facing repeated attempts on their lives by Hutu refugees, and sought protection at the UNHCR offices in Harare. What they got was a vicious beating and $50 (R675) to return to the camp.
Officers at Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights told the family the UNHCR protection officer who had overseen this episode was President Robert Mugabe’s nephew.
After accommodating the family for a month, the lawyers’s group instructed them to go back to the UNHCR offices for assistance, but the family were denied access to the building. The lawyers group then advised them to go to South Africa and seek the protection of the UNHCR regional office - which they did.
For the past six years the family have been sent from pillar to post by the Department of Home Affairs and the UNHCR, each of which claimed the other had the responsibility of protecting the family and sorting out their situation.
The UNHCR said South Africa should grant the family refugee status. The Refugee Appeal Board refused this, saying they had refugee status in Zimbabwe. The department then turned the case over to the UNHCR.
The UNHCR arranged shelter for the family for a year with the Jesuits, but when funding ran out the family were on the streets.
The UNHCR did nothing to find other shelter for them, but held resettlement hearings with the aim of possibly resettling the family abroad.
The family signed documents saying they accepted the protection of the UNHCR and had been told the agency would try to settle them in Australia, the US or Canada. This did not transpire and the family slept on the streets.
Then came detention for James Biamungu for four months earlier this year at the Lindela Repatriation Centre and two periods of detention in the Pretoria Central Prison.
His five children, ranging in age from 3 to 11 and none of whom had been to school, had been taken away from him and placed in shelters.
The family are to be reunited this week, but their fate is uncertain as they have no legal right to live in South Africa and the UNHCR has not taken steps to arrange their resettlement. For now, church members are providing shelter and food.
Foreign Editor