South African authorities on Friday delayed the closure of camps for foreigners displaced by xenophobic violence, as those living there warned they could face more attacks if they returned home.
The Constitutional Court gave about 2,000 foreigners still in the six camps around Johannesburg a reprieve, saying authorities would keep the shelters open until at least tomorrow, when it will hear an appeal against their closure, SAPA news agency said.
Authorities last month gave some 3,000 foreigners at the camps a deadline of Friday to leave. Some of them have since moved out.
The camps were set up after anti-immigrant violence broke out in May, with more than 60 people killed in the attacks.
The violence saw South Africans drive foreigners out of townships, mainly in the economic capital Johannesburg, where residents accuse immigrants of taking jobs and blame them for high crime rates.
The foreigners, many Zimbabwean, Mozambican and Democratic Republic of Congo nationals, said if they were forced to return to their former homes or countries, they would be exposed to fresh attacks or hardships.
“If they send me away, I don’t know where to go,” said Alois Makovere, a 21-year-old bricklayer. “Zimbabwe is worse. I fled from there in January. Returning there is sending me to hell. I cannot just go back to my country.”
A security guard from the Democratic Republic of Congo who arrived in South Africa in 2006, Godfrey Badibanga, said he was “left with nothing after I was attacked.
“We cannot rule out resistance from the refugees if we are being forced to leave the camp without decent alternative options being given to us,” Badibanga said.
“We must go where? We can’t go to death,” read a placard held aloft by a Zimbabwean protester at the camp.
French medical charity Doctors Without Borders last week urged South Africa to provide “viable options” to those displaced and has accused the UN refugee agency of supporting government attempts to close the camps.
“UNHCR [Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees] has supported the government decision to close the camps, and in so doing has failed the people it is mandated to protect,” the body’s head of mission in South Africa, Rachel Cohen, said in a letter to the UNHCR regional representative. “The government, in collaboration with UNHCR, should provide viable options to those who do not feel safe to return to their communities.”
Hundreds of armed policemen took position in and around the camp on Friday.
Some foreigners complained that immigration officials were withdrawing the temporary six-month extension certificates granted to them.
“A decision has been taken on the status of some of these foreigners. Those of them who qualify to stay in the country have no problems. But those who do not qualify are illegal and having their temporary documents withdrawn,” a senior official of the home affairs department said.
“Due process has been followed. If you fail to qualify for immigrant status, you will be deported as an illegal alien,” said the official, who declined to be named.
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