An illegal detention centre in the South African border town Musina is set to be permanently shut down, after a strongly worded judgment by the North Gauteng High Court in South Africa was handed down this week.

In February 2009, South Africa's Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) launched an urgent High Court application seeking the closure of the facility, citing the extreme unsanitary conditions of detention and the unlawful detention of refugees and young children. Most of the detainees were Zimbabweans seeking refuge in South Africa from the political and economic crises across the border. Children, many of whom made the journey to South Africa unaccompanied, were often arrested by police, military and immigration officials and detained and deported alongside adults, regardless of the devastating conditions from which they had fled.

The detention facility has been operational for more than two years, with an estimated 15 000 foreigners being detained and deported every month. The exiles were held in unsanitary, overcrowded conditions with no access to toilets, no medical facilities and inadequate food. LHR lawyers have described witnessing detainees being beaten with a green rubber hose, which they descibed as 'a punitive measure or a mechanism of crowd control.' LHR's Gina Snyman explained on Wednesday that these conditions were in 'stark violation of the minimum standards under international law, as well as the Immigration Regulations detailed by Home Affairs.'