Fight to save foreigner camps (Citizen)

The Citizen 23 July 2008

Fight to save foreigner camps

STEVEN TAU and CHRIS BATHEMBU

JOHANNESBURG - LAWYERS for Human Rights (LHR) will fight a bid by the Gauteng government to demolish temporary shelters set up to house victims of xenophobic attacks across the province.

The provincial government announced yesterday that the shelters will be destroyed by the end of the week with refugees reintegrated into their communities.

Spokesman Thabo Masebe said the government could no longer afford to run the shelters while other services suffered. More than 5 000 foreigners were placed in the temporary shelters after fleeing violence from various townships in Gauteng in May.

Masebe’s comments are in contrast to statements made to The Citizen by the Home Affairs Department that the shelters were expected to be removed by the end of the August.

Foreigners are resisting being reintegrated into the areas where some have lost their loved ones in the violence.

The Citizen has learnt that a meeting held at the weekend between the victims and residents of Ivory Park near Tembisa, in a bid to heal rifts, turned ugly when the residents reportedly chased foreigners away.

The residents are apparently refusing any attempt by authorities to reintegrate the refugees into the township.

“Those people are still angry and there is no way we are going back there, a Mozambican who attended the meeting told The Citizen during a visit to a shelter in Midrand.

“They made it clear that we are not welcome there. We are asking the government not to send us there,” said another foreigner.

Advocate Jacob van Garderen said that the LHR will explore all legal remedies to stop what he described as “a shortsighted move”. “Despite several attempts of trying to get the government to give us a realistic plan of integrating for the people, there was no response from them,” said Van Garderen.