Xenophobia victims out in the cold again

Police burn down last refugee camp for xenophobia victims THE last of the refugee camps established to house victims of xenophobic violence has been destroyed by the police. Most of the shelters were burned to the ground. # Bulldozers demolish Klerksoord shelter # Video: Klerksoord refugee camp demolished The press was barred from the camp — for “safety” reasons — as it was bulldozed. The police reportedly burned the camp after evicting the refugees yesterday morning. “There were dogs, guns and pepper spray,” claimed Ethiopian Zerihum Kura. “Our shacks were burning before we could collect all our belongings.” He said his two-year-old daughter, Nahimi, had pepper sprayed into her eyes by police. “[Is it] because we are foreigners? We want to go back to Ethiopia,” he said. Another woman, Anab Ahmed, 28, said she was not allowed to collect her belongings before her shelter was set alight. “I was running for my life,” she said. But the Tshwane municipality denies any instance of brutality, saying the clearing of the camp, said to have been requested by the UN Refugee Agency, was peaceful and smooth. Last year, more than 60 people were killed and thousands were displaced in xenophobic attacks across South Africa. Klerksoord is the last refugee camp to be destroyed. Metro police joined forces with Tshwane city officials yesterday in evicting the final 400 refugees from the camp, north of Pretoria. The residents had been living there illegally since August. Now the refugees must return to their old communities or find their own way to their homelands, said the UN Refugee Agency. The refugees allegedly requested to be taken to the Lindela Repatriation Centre. The UN High Commission for Refugees’ Monique Ekoko told The Times: “We cannot repatriate people to their home countries because they [the countries] are unsafe. “If people want to go home they must find their own way back. We are working to ensure that South Africa is a safe asylum country.” The refugees, most of whom are Somalis, were told by UN representatives that they could either go to a shelter in Johannesburg for two months or receive R2000 each, or R4000 a family, to find their own housing. Ekoko urged the refugees to give the government a chance. “The government has made it a priority to provide physical and legal protection to the refugees. There are systems in place to ensure that refugees can enjoy asylum in South Africa,” she said. Ekoko said the government and NGOs were trying to make repatriation easy for the refugees. “We are aware of the fact that people are scared to return to [their] communities,” she said. “ There are measures in place so that [xenophobic attacks] don’t happen again. “We are having workshops and training people to deal with the situation of reintegration,” Ekoko said. But this is cold comfort for Somalian Ibrahim Ziad. He said: “We do not feel safe in South Africa. “There is no guarantee that what happened last year will not take place again.”