South Africa: Refugees Haunted By Memories of Attacks

allAfrica.com: South Africa: Refugees Haunted By Memories of Attacks

9 May 2009

For hours Radjabu Ramadhani lay curled up in a car boot as his abductors drove around. He prayed for his life, convinced he would soon be killed.

Thoughts of his wife and two children flashed through his mind. He kept thinking "when will they stop the car and kill me?"

This was the second attack Ramadhani, a refugee living in Blue Waters safety camp, survived while trying to re-integrate with the community in Samora Machel informal settlement in Khayelitsha. The incident took place a month ago.

The first time he tried to go back, late last year, he was stabbed in the shoulder. This time, his abductors let him out of the boot, but shot him in the leg before driving off.

One of them warned: "You makwere-kwere must go back home or else we are going to kill you one by one."

Ramadhani, an electrician who owns the house he bought in Samora Machel five years ago, is one of 400 refugees still in safe shelters in Cape Town following last year's xenophobic attacks. This month marks the first anniversary of the attacks that left a dark shadow over the Rainbow Nation.

During the attacks some 20 000 foreigners were displaced in the Western Cape alone. More than 60 foreigners and locals were killed, mostly in Gauteng.

Earlier this year a hard-hitting report on the xenophobia warned that "civil violence will rise again". The report - titled Humanitarian Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons in South Africa: Lessons Learned Following Attacks on Foreign Nationals in May 2008 - was penned by Wits University's Forced Migration Studies Programme. It said civil violence was likely to recur, whether against foreign nationals, or among South Africans, and neither the government nor civil society was ready to provide effective protection.

When Weekend Argus visited the Blue Waters camp in False Bay this week many of the refugees spoke of their deep-seated fear of being reintegrated into their communities. Many would rather return to their war-torn countries, despite UN advice to the contrary.

With the Cape's cold wet winter looming, many are concerned about the deteriorating conditions in the camp. They live in weather-beaten tents and rely on food handouts to survive. Local government has cut off the electricity supply.

But there are still children running around the camp playing. Some residents were doing washing and others making charcoal from wood..

The horror of being chased from their homes and having their businesses looted and destroyed has left many people with post-traumatic stress.

Mummy Bhadais, from the eastern Congo, has three children and looks after her 10-year-old sister too. She still has nightmares. In last year's attacks she was raped by two men at gunpoint, and her husband was stabbed.

Somali Zam Zam Ismail Ibrahim feeds her baby Nowell. Her mother relates how men wielding pangas and bottles attacked their Khayelitsha shop. "I just remember the police saying we must leave now or else we would die."

She said they had moved around South Africa three times after robberies.

On Thursday representatives of the refugees, local and provincial government and the UN met to discuss the crisis.

One of the refugees' representatives said the meeting was "a waste of time". "No one listened to our concerns, not event the UN representative."

They have been given three options - to re-integrate into their former communities, resettle into other communities or return to their countries.

The refugee said these were not alternatives. "If we go home we die and if we stay we die. If they can't protect us, must we get guns to ensure our safety. Most of us are trained military men."

Meanwhile the city has served notice on the people in Blue Waters that it will seek a court eviction order.