A court in South Africa has convicted two Mozambicans in a case of trafficking 39 people from Mozambique, including nine children under the age of 5, South African authorities announced today.

"The two brothers [...] were found guilty and convicted by the Belfast Magistrates' Court on Friday 22 July 2022 of breaching immigration law. They were sentenced to three months imprisonment or payment of a fine of 5,000 rand each," the South African police criminal investigation unit (HAWKS) pointed out in a statement.

The statement said that the two Mozambicans, who were arrested in June on a farm in Dullstroom, in the South African province of Mpumalanga, which borders Mozambique, have decided to abandon their bail application for human trafficking, adding that "they are being held to serve time in prison.

According to South African police, the co-defendants in the case of alleged human trafficking from Mozambique, two South Africans, father and son, appeared before the Belfast court on Monday, and the magistrate adjourned the case to July 27 for a new bail hearing.

The two South Africans have been in custody since early July for "violation of the human trafficking law, participation or conspiracy in human trafficking," according to South African authorities.

According to spokeswoman Dineo Lucy Sekgotodi, quoted in the statement to which Lusa had access, the men "were arrested on July 3, 2022 for human trafficking in the case in which 39 victims, including seven women, nine children under the age of 5 and 23 men over the age of 18, who were rescued from a farm in Dullstroom," she said.

The spokeswoman for the South African criminal investigation unit pointed out that the gang recruited their victims in Mozambique with the promise of a "better job" in South Africa, to which they were illegally transported overland.

"The victims were transported from Mozambique to the border, where they had to get out of the cab and cross the border illegally across the river into South Africa and then taken in the cab to Lydenburg [a town near Dullstroom]. The farm owner's son and a trafficker allegedly met the taxi driver, whom they paid in cash in exchange for the victims, who were taken to the farm for work," the South African police spokeswoman said. (Lusa)