Tuesday, June 23, 2009

42 nabbed over human trafficking

March 5, 2008

By KASUBA MULENGA
FORTY-TWO Congolese nationals on a human trafficking mission to South Africa have been intercepted and detained by the Immigration Department in Lusaka.

Immigration Department public relations officer, Mulako Mbangweta, said in Lusaka March 4 that 26 of those arrested in Lusaka last week were yesterday repatriated to the Democratic Republic of Congo while 16 were still in detention in Kabwe.
“We could not detain the Congolese nationals who were arrested in Lusaka because most of them are women with children as young as six months old,” Ms Mbangweta said.

She said the ones in Kabwe would remain in detention until the department completed its investigations. Those repatriated were arrested in Lusaka’s Kanyama Township some five days ago.
“From the interviews we have conducted so far, they look like they were being trafficked to South Africa. When people are being trafficked, they do not know where they are going and where they are,” she said.

Immigration officers arrested 16 Congolose nationals in Kabwe last week and picked up leads from them that another larger group had proceeded to Lusaka.
An unknown group of human traffickers is behind the scheme to move the Congolese nationals to South Africa.

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