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 hostile immigration officials who detained her and her 1-year-old daughter in the airport holding cells on Saturday afternoon.
Rebecca Horras recalled that the past few days “felt unreal, like something out of a thriller movie.”
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 owing to passport irregularities.
South African immigration officials indicated her toddler’s passport was not acceptable and threatened mother and child with deportation.
“I was asked to stay overnight in a room with one bed and blankets that had been previously used,” Rebecca said. “I ate rice and chicken for all meals, but luckily I had a travel bag with baby food for Marlene.”
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, Chris, after his wife and child had been blocked from entering the country.
Van Leeuwen Boomkamp 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,” he related. “This was deemed unacceptable by the immigration officers at CTIA, who wanted to put them on a flight back to Germany on Sunday at 12 noon.”
Van Leeuwen Boomkamp told Paarl Post Chris urgently called him late Saturday night informing him his wife had been detained at the airport.
“I immediately called Beverley Schäfer of the DA and informed her of the Horras family’s predicament. The family had already approached the German Embassy for assistance, but were told they could not be assisted on a Saturday afternoon, coupled with a German public holiday, the Day of Unity, 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 Van Leeuwen Boomkamp said he was upset over this treatment of tourists at the airport, because tourists bring in much needed revenue into this country.
“It is of the 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!”
After a very long ordeal over documentation, embassies and alleged administrative cock-ups, the Paarl Post witnessed first-hand the family’s reunion on Tuesday morning at De Leeuwenhof Estate.
Rebecca said after enduring days of all the moving pieces she was finally set to gain legal entrance to her destination.
“But just when I thought it was over the officials had misplaced our passports, and it was another hour-and-a-half before it was found.”
Eventually Beverley Schäfer was able to work wonders and arrange emergency passports so they could enter the country and start their holiday, Van Leeuwen Boomkamp said.
Schäfer, the DA’s Deputy Speaker of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, said she was not going to quit until mother and daughter gained entrance into South Africa. She said: “It would be so unfair for the mother to be deported when the administrative glitch wasn’t her fault. It, however, took time.”
Schäfer explained that German passports allowed for passport extensions as children aged, instead of getting a renewed password altogether.
“It turns out that out of Marlene’s four extensions, her fourth had a different barcode than the initial three,” she said. “While other countries accept this difference, South Africa does not.”
It was a team effort in which she said all role-players wanted to abide by the law, but still break the red tape to free them for travel.
“This was teamwork with huge gratitude to CTIA’s Mark Maclean and Frans Mohlabeng, Qatar Airlines, who were patient not to deport her and allow her to remain at the airport for two days with her baby and Immigration who helped with her final entry into SA.
“And, of course, the Consul General of Germany, Tanya Werheit, who was in constant contact with me late into Saturday night, Sunday and ensure an emergency passport could be issued first thing on Tuesday morning.”
Schäfer added that travel agencies, airlines and airport officials should exercise cautious communication with tourists travelling to countries with varying regulations relating to passports and immigration control. “Our tourists are so important to us right now that one bad experience could turn a nation of visitors away.”
