South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said his country will accept more than 150 Palestinian refugees from Gaza after the group landed in Johannesburg without “the necessary documents and papers.”
Activists criticised South African authorities for holding the passengers — including children and a pregnant woman — for more than 12 hours on the aircraft before immigration allowed them to disembark.
“We cannot turn them back, even though they do not have the necessary documents and papers,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said a few hours after the arrival of the plane. “These are people from a strife torn, a war torn country and out of compassion, out of empathy, we must receive them.”
The Palestinians landed on a charter plane at Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo International Airport on Thursday morning after a stopover in Nairobi, Kenya, South Africa’s Border Management Authority said in a statement.
It was not immediately clear how the charter plane was organised, where exactly it came from and why the passengers were able to leave Israel without the proper documentation, South African authorities said.
South Africa’s interior ministry said the Palestinian embassy informed the South African government that the group was deceived and charged money by an unspecified unregistered organisation.
