Twenty-four-year-old Azuri Muhili and 26-year-old Bushambela Yakobo said they were detained, beaten, and then released without charge on 16 October.
FILE: Picture: www.ipid.gov.za.
DURBAN – Two foreign nationals in Durban on Monday opened a case with the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) after being allegedly assaulted by police for having expired asylum seeker documentation.
Twenty-four-year-old Azuri Muhili and 26-year-old Bushambela Yakobo said that they were detained, beaten, and then released without charge on 16 October.
Muhili and Yakobo, who are originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said that the policemen also used xenophobic insults.
They said that their two-hour nightmare started when six police officers stopped their vehicle while they were walking from a relative’s house in a Durban suburb.
“They asked us to take our documents out and we showed them our asylum seeker documentation, and when they saw that they started handling Denial [Yakobo] in a very unpleasant way. So, they started picking him up,” Muhili said.
Muhili said they were then taken into a police vehicle.
“And the one guy who was in front came with a glass bottle and started hitting us with it,” he said.
Muhili said the police took them to a room within the Durban bus station where they were further assaulted.
“All of them would just come and slap us and bang our heads constantly against the wall and even against each other.”
Ipid confirmed that it is investigating the matter.
