Gift of the Givers: Keeping Palestinians inside a plane for 12 hours is unacceptable

Humanitarian aid group Gift of the Givers said keeping 153 Palestinians inside a plane for 12 hours at OR Tambo International is unacceptable.

The travellers were on Thursday stranded on the tarmac at OR Tambo International Airport.

ALSO READ: Gift of the Givers accommodates 130 Palestinian refugees who arrived in SA

Border police couldn't immediately get them off the aircraft because they didn't have the required customary departure stamps to disembark.

The group landed from Kenya on Thursday morning on the charter flight operated by South African Airline Global Airways.

Gift of the Givers Chair Imtiaz Sooliman said this should not have happened because their organisation had already agreed to house them when they arrived.

“Gift of the Givers calls on President Cyril Ramaphosa to investigate the Department of Home Affairs and Border Management Authority for the inhumanity, the lack of empathy, total disgrace and the humiliation they have caused the people of Palestine, 153 refugees waiting on the tarmac of OR Tambo for 13 hours.”

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