Malawi considers deporting refugees engaged in business

The Malawi government was considering deporting at least 40 foreign asylum seekers who ended up operating businesses in the country’s capital, Lilongwe, the Zambian News Agency reported on Sunday.

The agency quoted Lucius Chikuni, Malawi’s commissioner of disaster preparedness, relief and rehabilitation, as saying that the government was shocked to learn that the refugees were operating minibus businesses in the capital, instead of staying at the Dzaleka refugee camp, about 60 km outside the city. Chikuni said he and President Bakili Muluzi had received a death threat from some refugees at the camp for alleged mistreatment by the Malawian government.

The commissioner was quoted as saying that any refugee operating any type of business outside a designated area was contravening the law, and could be punished. Malawi has between 5,000 and 6,000 refugees, mainly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan.