Cape storms flatten refugee tents

Six tents that currently accommodate foreign nationals have been flattened by strong winds that lashed Harmony Park at Gordon's bay near Cape Town. There are more than 500 refugees still living on the safety sites.

There are no reports of injuries nor damage to structural buildings in the park. Refugees assisted by the City of Cape Town workers are trying to pitch the tents that were blown away.

Harmony Park is one of three safety sites that have not been closed by the Western Cape disaster management. The others are Blue waters near Strandfontein as well as Youngfield Military base at Ottery. Some of the refugees that have been moved from 11 community halls during the week, have been relocated to the Harmony site.

Meanwhile, the City of Cape Town's Disaster Response Teams have been providing relief to people at informal settlements which have been affected by the rough weather conditions in the Western Cape Province.

Two frontal systems that passed through the province resulted in widespread rain which caused localised flooding and power disruptions across the Cape Peninsula.

The City's Disaster Management spokesperson, Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, says hot meals and blankets are being provided to flood victims at Phola Park, Klipfontein Mission Station as well as Never-Never, an informal settlement in Phillipi. He says mop up operations are currently underway following the heavy rains and winds. - SABC

Xenophobia: 'SA govt to blame'

Johannesburg - Experts on Wednesday slammed what they called South Africa's lack of a migration policy on Africans, saying it was a major reason for recent xenophobic violence.

"There is a gross negligence on the part of officials to manage migration and understand other Africans. There is a need for a humane and sensible migration policy in South Africa," said Ann Bernstein of the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE), an independent policy research body.

A "proper and coherent" policy on migration should recognise the "inevitability" of African immigrants in South Africa, she said in a roundtable discussion on migration.

"We have to face the challenge (of migrants) in South Africa instead of panicking about them," she said.

More than 60 people were killed across the country in xenophobia attacks in May, which began in Johannesburg.

Negative perceptions about immigrants must be taken seriously by policy makers, she said.

According to a 2006 CDE survey on migration in Johannesburg, around 14% of the city's 3.9 million population, or about 550 000, are foreigners.

Sixty percent of foreigners, most of whom "make a positive contribution" to the South African economy, experience negative treatment in Johannesburg, the study said.

Education on migrants

South African officials should deal with migration in ways that give citizens "confidence on the positive contribution" of migrants to the nation's development, the study said.

Mamphela Ramphele, a former co-chair of the Global Commission on International Migration, said South Africa was not "conducting itself in a proper human rights manner," adding that it needed to learn from other countries such as Canada and Australia on migration management.

She said a government policy should also include the education of citizens on immigration in all its ramifications: who immigrants are, their situation and what has driven them out of their country.

"Government should do much to educate South Africans about other Africans," she said.

"There is complete disconnectedness between various government departments... Home Affairs department officials treat our African migrants as a nuisance and without respect," she added.

Philip Martin, a professor of economics at the University of California, said that there was a need for reliable data on migration in South Africa to allow for proper government planning, citing Costa Rica and Malaysia as some countries with good policy on migration. - AFP

Zimbabweans' Shacks set alight, cops fire rubber bullets

Police fired rubber bullets to disperse around 50 people after two shacks belonging to Zimbabwean immigrants were burnt in the North West Province, authorities said on Saturday.

The incident erupted after a Lesotho man stabbed a Zimbabwean in a tavern on Friday night, causing a fight to break out, said police captain Adele Myburgh.

Two shacks in the Bokfontein area were then set alight, she said. Police responded and found a "chaotic" scene involving some 50 people, said Myburgh. Police then fired rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.

Earlier reports said the incident appeared to be a "xenophobic" attack.

However, authorities were no longer considering it an anti-immigrant attack since they had determined it started after the incident between the Lesotho man and the Zimbabwean, Myburgh said.

A wave of violence that broke out in May saw foreigners being driven out of townships, mainly in Johannesburg, where residents accuse immigrants of taking jobs and blame them for high crime rates.

More than 60 people were killed in those attacks. - News24

Should I stay or should I go....

Well "Go" according to the Gauteng government....

"Really, they have been given enough time ... and it was extended for a few days. We think that is enough time to arrange alternative accommodation," spokesperson Thabo Masebe said on Tuesday.

Themba Masebe having a heart!

Reintegrate or return home

Johannesburg - The African migrants who have poured into the city known in Zulu as the Place of Gold over the past decade face an agonising choice in the coming week.

They must reintegrate into the townships and squatter camps they fled in mid-May when their South African neighbours began attacking them - or return home to the poverty and/or conflict they left behind in their countries of origin.

The two-week orgy of xenophobic violence that swept South Africa in May, leaving at least 62 people dead and hundreds injured, marked one of the darkest hours in the country's 14-year democracy.

Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Malawians, Congolese, Nigerians and other Africans scooped up their children and ran from mobs with little more than the clothes on their back.

Many were so traumatised by the violence they had witnessed or experienced they rushed to board buses and trains out of South Africa.

The rest, close to 40 000 at one point, piled into police stations, churches and community halls, from where most were later bundled off to government-run camps.

Shelters being shut down

Now, barely three months later, the government is shutting down the shelters, leaving around 7 000 people facing an uncertain future. In Gauteng province, where most of the violence took place in and around Johannesburg, six camps holding around 3 000 people are due to close by August 15.

Refugees in the Western Cape have a few extra weeks to plot their next move, with authorities there saying they hope to empty over 40 shelters by September 3.

For 21-year-old Fortune, from Zimbabwe, removal from Rand Airport refugee camp in east Johannesburg means the end of his protection from youths who have vowed to finish off "amakwerekwere" (foreigners).

"It is difficult for me to go back (to nearby Primrose squatter camp)," says the lanky security guard, who hopped the border illegally into South Africa to escape Zimbabwean Robert Mugabe's disastrous policies.

Returning to Zimbabwe in the absence of a change in government is not an option, says Fortune. Going back to Primrose is nearly as unpalatable. "They will kill me," he says.

Dramatic a scenario as that may sound, it's not unrealistic. In Ramaphosa squatter camp, where the sadly iconic image of Mozambique's Ernesto Nhamuave burning to death was captured, another Mozambican who returned home recently to his South African wife was dragged from his shack and hacked to death.

Poor-on-poor violence

Analysts say the unbridled influx of migrants from poorer countries into Africa's biggest economy since the end of apartheid, including an estimated between one and three million Zimbabweans, is causing a "poor-on-poor violence" tussle over scarce resources.

One in four in South Africa is officially jobless, with unions putting the real figure at closer to 40%. South Africans accuse undocumented foreigners of aggravating their plight by working for less pay.

While most agree that the refugee shelters should not become a permanent fixture, activists accuse the government of not doing enough to pave the way for the reintegration of migrants or to prepare them for their return.

"People are really confused. They don't know where to go," says Partson Madzimure, a Zimbabwean-trained psychology lecturer who organises free classes for kids and adults at Rand Airport.

But the government has to tread carefully to avoid being perceived as doing more for the migrants than needy locals.

Allegations that foreigners leapfrogged South Africans on the waiting list for government housing was what ignited the violence in Alexandra township, north of Johannesburg, on May 11.

Reintegration

"We're encouraging people to reintegrate themselves," Russell McGregor, the Gauteng government's media liaison officer said.

Where migrants were unwelcome, in places like Ramaphosa, "the political leadership and the councils will try to integrate them into other areas," he said.

Meanwhile, migrants who return to the scene of May's crime have their own set of resentments to contend with.

Domingo Mawai, a Mozambican-born father of four, is back selling fruit and vegetables through a mesh screen in a tiny street-side stall in Alexandra.

Every day, he sees the people who used the cover provided by the xenophobic violence to make off with R8 000 worth of stock, his fridge, TV, DVD player, blankets and stove.

"One of them came to the shop recently to ask forgiveneness," he notes. Nobody, as yet, has offered to return his property. - Sapa-dpa

Beaten up for coming back

Congolese lawyer, Chris Kwigomba, lived through the recent spate of xenophobic attacks and believed the situation would calm down and that life would return to normal.

The feeling of confidence was heightened by an announcement by the municipality that it was safe for foreigners to return to their former abodes because the threat of violence was over.

Councillors in areas such as Cato Crest and Mariannhill said their communities would welcome back victims of xenophobia.

Last week, Kwigomba decided to go back to his flat in Umbilo and return to his managerial job at a local food outlet. But as soon as he was spotted in the building, all hell broke loose.

"Someone started screaming 'ikwerekwere' (a derogatory name for 'foreigner') and the next thing there were angry people beating me up with hard objects for no reason," he said.

"I became unconscious and woke up in King Edward VIII Hospital with a head injury and bruises."

Like so many refugees, Kwigomba is between a rock and a hard place. He claims it is not safe to live in the local community and he cannot go back to the Congo because he fears he will lose his life.

"Those who fled the Congo are looked upon as traitors. Whichever way you look at it, it would seem we are doomed."

'most of the foreign members of our community have been returning to their homes safely'

He said all the refugees were asking for was a safe place to stay.

Mariannhill councillor, Pearl Luthuli, and her Cato Crest counterpart, Gloria Borman, paint a different picture.

Luthuli said she had not heard of any returning refugees who were assaulted.

"If it did happen, it would have been done by an individual and not a group of people because we have been addressing this issue and people don't seem to have a problem with them returning. I would say that it is safe for them to come back," she said.

"As far as I know, most of the foreign members of our community have been returning to their homes safely." - Daily News

SA to close refugee camps

South Africa is to close camps set up around Johannesburg and Cape Town for thousands of foreigners displaced in May's anti-immigrant attacks, officials said on Friday.

Six camps in Gauteng Province, which includes economic capital Johannesburg, housing about 3 000 foreigners, are to be formally closed on August 15, with the remainder due to shut over the following weeks.

There are about 4 200 people camped in 45 sites across Western Cape Province in the southeast.

"We would like everybody to be fully reintegrated by September 3," the local director of a disaster management centre in Western Cape, Hildegarde Fast, told AFP.

But that deadline may be shifted in certain camps "because we understand that there might be some very difficult cases: people who do not want to be reintegrated but cannot be repatriated because they come from conflict zones," she said.

Fear of fresh attacks lingers

Some 16 000 immigrants have already left the camps of the province and a "majority" have been returned home or to alternative zones, she added.

But the fear of becoming targets of fresh attacks lingers.

Since victims of xenophobic attacks began to return to their homes in Western Cape, five foreigners have been killed and seven others injured, the weekly Mail and Guardian reported.

The police confimed the killing on Tuesday of only one immigrant.

"It is very difficult sometimes to separate what is simply a robbery and what is something specifically motivated by xenophobia," Fast said.

The newspaper also reported cases of racketeers offering immigrants protection.

Foreigners, notably Zimbabweans and Mozambicans, were targeted in May during the wave of the anti-immigrant attacks in which at least 62 were killed and tens of thousands were displaced.

- News24