A German mother’s dream holiday became a nightmare when she and her family landed at Cape Town International Airport (CTIA), only to be greeted by immigration officials who detained her and her one-year-old daughter in the airport holding cells on Saturday afternoon.
The 28-year-old mother’s holiday excitement was rudely disrupted when she, her husband and in-laws, yearning to travel parts of Southern Africa for two weeks, were blocked at the immigration check-in due to passport irregularities. South African immigration officials indicated that her toddler’s passport was not acceptable and threatened mother and child with deportation.
The family’s first stop in South Africa happened to be at the De Leeuwenhof Estate in Klein Drakenstein, Paarl, the guest farm of the well-known commander of the Drakenstein Farm Watch, Daan van Leeuwen Boomkamp. And he too was the first port of call for the distraught husband and father, after his wife and child had been blocked from entering the country.
Daan immediately took proactive steps to prevent the foreign visitor and her daughter from being deported on the next flight back to Homburg, Germany.
“The child arrived with her kinderreisepass (child passport) that has documented extensions for young children. These extensions show multiple identity photographs, which are updated every six months because of the child’s ever-changing face in their rapidly growing years. It is the same passport, only containing multiple photos of the child,” Daan explained.
“This was deemed unacceptable by the immigration officers at CTIA and they wanted to put them on a flight back to Germany on Sunday at 12 noon.”
He told Paarl Post that the husband, Chris, urgently called on him at around 21:00 on Saturday evening informing him that his wife had been detained at the airport.
“I immediately called Beverley Schäfer from the DA and informed her of the Horras-family’s predicament. The family had already approached the German Embassy for assistance, but were told that they could not be assisted on a Saturday afternoon, coupled with a German public holiday on Monday.”
As a role player in the local tourism industry, who also suffered much financial losses due to travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, Daan said he was highly upset at the treatment of the tourists at the airport. He said that it is of utmost importance that tourists are assisted on arrival in South Africa.
“They are European tourists choosing South Africa as a travel destination, but they get treated like criminals and put in the holding cells of all places,” he added in disbelief. Tourists bring in much needed revenue into this country.
After a very long ordeal over documentation, embassies and alleged administrative cock-ups, Paarl Post was able to first hand witness the families reunion on Tuesday morning at the De Leeuwenhof Estate.
“Eventually, Beverley Schäfer was able to assist amazingly and clear their passports so that they could enter the country and start their holiday,” said Daan.
Schäfer, the DA’s Deputy Speaker of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, said she was not going to stop until mother and daughter could gain entrance into South Africa.
“It would be so unfair for the mother to be deported when the administrative glitch wasn’t her fault. It, however, took time. It was a team effort in which we wanted to follow all the rules, but still break the red tape to free them for travel,” she warmly stated.
Schäfer added that airlines and officials should exercise cautious communication with tourists traveling to countries with the necessary varying regulations relating to passports and immigration control.
This is a developing story. Read this week’s Paarl Post for the full story.
