NAMIBIA’S Commissioner of Refugees Nkrumah Mushelenga has called for serious integration of refugee commissions in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region, saying the existing status where countries were working in an isolated manner was contributing to aimless roaming of refugees.

Speaking after a tour of the Meheba refugee settlement in Solwezi on Monday, Mushelenga said lack of regular meetings between the refugee commissions in the region had contributed largely to the proliferation and worsening situation of refugee affairs in the SADC area.

Mushelenga, who was hosted by his Zambian counterpart Jacob Mphepo and Meheba refugee officer Kububa Soko, said the refugee authorities in SADC were working on individual basis, which made the work of controlling their movement harder to contain.

“It’s worsening the situation because we have countries dealing with refugees on an individual basis. This problem can’t be worked out on an isolated or bilateral basis but as a regional approach. That has made us to be completely behind schedule (harmonising refugee commission roles in the region),” he said.

Mushelenga was disappointed with the increasing number of refugees in the region and called for the harnessing of efforts from the SADC refugee commissions in order to stem the tide while noting that the trend needed to stop because there were fewer wars in the region.

“SADC generates a lot of refugees. That’s ridiculous. Even if we said there is freedom of movement, which is a human right but we are talking about free movement and at the same time we are hosting refugees! We need to sit and discuss what can be done so that SADC doesn’t generate refuges,” he said.

“If there is nothing to control the situation, that if one country has to work on its own, we are going to have people roaming around aimlessly. We are not saying we are not going to host refugees but what we are saying is that there must be a way of controlling the situation.”

Mushelenga also revealed that the refugee commissions were given a task on harmonising their roles in refugee organisation but that the regional chiefs had yet to meet in five years.