Home Affairs Minister Dr Leon Schreiber on Thursday instructed his department to proceed with speed with the deportation of 95 Libyans who were arrested in White River, in Mpumalanga.

This after the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) withdrew charges against the Libyans who were arrested at a suspected unauthorised military camp in Mpumalanga last month.

The 95 were facing charges of Contraventions of the Immigration Act.

Schreiber said Home Affairs officials were in court to secure the confirmations for deportation from the Magistrate, highlighting that this would pave the way for their deportation.

He said the officials were also finalising logistics for the deportation.

“As indicated earlier, deportation was among the options Home Affairs considered working with other law enforcement authorities. The Department stands ready to send the group back to their home country,” he noted.

He pointed that his department would not hesitate to act decisively to ensure that anyone who breached the immigration laws of the country was processed through the courts and accordingly faced the consequences.

Meanwhile, ActionSA president Herman Mashaba expressed grave concern following the withdrawal of the charges, saying despite the unanswered questions surrounding how these individuals gained entry into South Africa and their intentions, they were now set to be deported.

Mashaba noted that his party believed that until the nature of every one of the 95 individuals' activities in South Africa was fully ascertained, they must remain in custody within South Africa.

“…it is the Minister of Home Affairs himself who indicated that they indeed irregularly acquired visas to enter South Africa, an act that dually means they contravened our immigration laws,” he said.

He explained that ActionSA believed that the country’s intelligence services had failed to answer basic questions, such as whether these individuals were part of a known or unknown militant group? Whether they posed a threat to national security? And, importantly, whether any State or non-State actors supported the activities of the 95 individuals?

Mashaba called on government to break its silence and take the nation into his confidence regarding what exactly transpired in this matter, which, by all accounts, was a glaring intelligence and law enforcement failure.