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South African Visitors To The UK Face New Visa Rules

Tue, 10 Feb 2009

South Africans will need a compulsory visa in order to travel to the UK, the Home Office has confirmed.

The new visa rules will also apply to people from Bolivia, Venezuela, Swaziland and Lesotho after they were deemed to pose a threat in terms of security, immigration and crime.

Nationals from the five countries will now be required to provide fingerprints and pay a fee to obtain a visa before travelling to the UK.

Ministers decided to change the rules following a review of countries exempt from visa regulations because of fears of slack passport checks. There has also been claims that al-Qaeda training camps are using South Africa as their base before arriving in Britain .

Defending her decision to MPs, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: "We are introducing new visa requirements for Bolivia, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland and Venezuela ."

"Visitors from these countries will need a six-month visa and they will need to provide their fingerprints before travelling here. Those travelling via the UK will also need a transit visa ."

She added: "These new requirements are in addition to the existing requirements for a visa to live, work, study and marry in Britain, and form part of the biggest-ever changes to strengthen Britain's border security through stronger overseas checks, tougher border checks and robust enforcement action within the UK."

The Government said first-time visitors to the UK will need to apply for visas from 3 March 2009, while the new visa rules will be fully enforced by mid-2009.

South Africans are the fifth largest group of annual non-EU visitors to Britain behind citizens of the US, Australia, Canada and Japan .

In 2007, 419,000 people legally visited the UK from South Africa, including 168,000 tourists and 46,200 business visitors, while nearly 3,000 were given work permits .
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