ANC Secretary General, Fikile Mbalula has condemned the incident at the Chopin Airport in Warsaw where Polish authorities refused over 120 South African presidential security guards and journalists permission to disembark from an aircraft for 26 hours.
The airplane was carrying additional security guards for President Cyril Ramaphosa on the African Leaders’ Peace mission to Ukraine and Russia.
The journalists were to cover the mission.
Reasons that Polish authorities gave for the decision include permits which were not in order and they were not informed about some of the people on board.
Mbalula says the ANC leadership is yet to get a report.
“It is disturbing what we see on the news. We don’t have all the facts that we have South African who were not allowed to disembark on the plane … people on that were plane, only after 24 hours were actually allowed. What did they do, that fundamentally a country like Poland would act in this manner on the basis of just human rights and only after 24 hours they could leave, it is disturbing we hope to get a proper account from our deployed deployees about what happened.”
Around 120 South Africans disembark plane after 24-hour drama in Warsaw, Poland:
