Pretoria - More than half-a-million international visitors are in the country for the World Cup.
According to statistics released by Home Affairs on Tuesday, 682 507 international visitors arrived in the country between June 1 to 21.
Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said the greatest number comes from African countries mainly; Lesotho followed by Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and Botswana.
The other dominant countries were the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Australia, Mexico and Brazil.
Dlamini-Zuma said to date there had been 12157 cases of people overstaying entry conditions, abusing permits or reporting lost and stolen passports.
The department only rejected 34 visa applications. This was because their travel documents were non-compliant with immigration requirements including visas, expired, fraudulent or being placed on the Visa and Entry Stop List.
The minister said that through government's Movement Control System (MCS), entry was also denied to a number of soccer hooligans particularly from Argentina and Great Britain who sought to enter the country over the past few weeks.
In addition, the MCS has also assisted law enforcement agencies in apprehending suspects who were on the wanted list for a variety of reasons.
"The Department is confident that the systems it has implemented, as part of the legacy of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, will continue to make a major contribution towards combating crime and corruption way beyond the tournament," the minster said.
