Cape Town - “One: Do not answer your phone while using public transport as they might pick up from your accent that you are not from South Africa. If that happens, they might harm you.
“Two: Do not wear your traditional garments. Wear what the local South African black man and woman is wearing because if they see your dress, they might harm you.
“Three: Pack up all your stock and keep it somewhere safe until things calm down. If they see your shop in operation, they might harm you.”
Those are some of the instructions Rwandan refugees and asylum seekers living in Cape Town are obeying amid fears that xenophobic attacks, which were triggered in other provinces, might spread to the Western Cape.
Callixte Kavuro, chairman of the Rwandan platform for Dialogue, Truth and Justice (RDTJ), on Monday said about 1 500 refugees and asylum seekers would “lay low” for the next few weeks out of fear for their lives.
“We are taking our own preventative measures - the law cannot protect us. We have adopted those rules to keep us safe,” Kavuro said.
Congolese Community of the Western Cape spokesman Leonard Mulunda lamented that the memory of the 2008 attacks, when about 60 foreign nationals were killed across the country, still haunted many of them.
“From my experience living in South Africa, people tend to blame foreigners for problems of housing, unemployment and of poverty,” Mulunda said.
While Somali Association provincial spokesman Mohamed Osman said there were no fears of xenophobic attacks in the province, its members were always vigilant to avoid potential conflict.
Community Safety MEC Dan Plato said the department would refrain from speculation as to why the brutal attacks on foreigners in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng have not occurred in the province.
Carolin Gomulia, communication co-ordinator at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), echoed Plato’s stance and added that a xenophobic outbreak could spark in the province at any moment.
A debate at the IJR’s Cape Town office on Tuesday would interrogate interventions needed to address xenophobia. The panel would include community leaders, government and civil organisations.
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