The long road home

At around 10am on May 10, breakfast is being served at the Chatsworth camp, in a suburb of Durban, South Africa. Men and children queue up for a modest meal: two slices of bread, a green apple and a brown paper cup of coffee. Women wash clothes in an open area. A few children swoosh down two slides located in the corner. Screams arise from a heated football game. Doctors from Medicins sans Frontier make their rounds. Steel-wire fences enclose the camp. Armed security men stand on guard and four police vans are parked outside. Depending on whom you choose to ask, there are either 1,037 or 912 African people living in this last remaining government camp for those displaced by last month’s xenophobic attacks in Durban.

In April, many people were killed (the official count is seven — one Ethiopian, a Zimbabwean, a Mozambican, one Bangladeshi and three South Africans) and more than 5,000 displaced in xenophobic attacks that broke out in South Africa’s third biggest city. The attacks, which began in Durban, spread even to Johannesburg. In areas of Durban, like Isipingo and Chatsworth, spaza shops (provision shops, often run by foreigners) were looted and burned down. South African newspapers reported incidents of arson and rape, of foreigners being hunted down and targeted. Thousands fled their shops and homes, seeking refuge at the three government camps that were set up in the city.

The reasons for the attacks remain inconclusive. One of the causes cited for the violence is Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini’s provocative remarks against foreigners. “We are requesting those who come from outside to please go back to their countries. Most government leaders do not want to speak out on this matter because they are scared of losing votes,” he said in an address at a moral regeneration event held in March.

However, tensions have been rising since January, when xenophobic attacks took place in Gauteng province. At the camp too, immigrants said that the Durban attacks didn’t happen in isolation. On March 30, at a wholesale shop in Isipingo, local workers protested, demanding salary hikes. Their ire quickly turned towards foreigners employed at the supermarket, after which the violence erupted.

While thousands of South Africans took to the streets in a peace march and #SayNoToXenophobia went viral, the attacks were a throwback to the horrific xenophobic violence of May 2008, in which 62 people were killed and more than 1,50,000 displaced. The gruesome image of the ‘burning’ Mozambican man remains a recent memory.

Anicet Bigirimana is a single parent of six children. In 2006, he left Burundi with his wife and children on the back of a truck to come to Durban. A soft-spoken man, Bigirimana is my guide at the Chatsworth camp, which was the first camp to be opened in the second week of April. As repatriation and reintegration took over, city authorities and the South African government closed down the other camps. Chatsworth continues to function as a temporary home to the displaced people from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Nowhere to run

When the attacks began, Bigirimana says, he had little time to pack. “I took my children and ran. But why am I being chased away when my life is here,” he asks. Bigirimana, who worked as a truck driver for a local business, says xenophobia is a daily occurrence, rearing its head as prejudiced treatment and uncivil neighbours. Like many others at the camp, he was caught in the brutal attacks of 2008. There have been other incidents too, he says. For instance, in 2011, the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in SA recorded an average of one killing a week. Despite the unrest in Burundi currently, he has decided to return. Nearly 1,00,000 people have fled Burundi in search of safer havens, but Bigirimana has few choices. “How can I trust my neighbours who blame me for social ills? It’s not safe anymore. I will take the bus back to Burundi,” he says.

The marquees are overfull; a few people have attached sheets to the tent flaps to make more room. Electrical lines running through the tents provide enough electricity for only tube lights. Television sets lie defunct and mobile phones can’t be charged. Baby food is in short supply, says Bigirimana. The government, which had promised to make arrangements for school-going children, is yet to arrange transport. According to a few people in the camp, meals have also been irregular.

Congolese national Daniel Dunia was chosen as the leader of the camp to conduct negotiations with the authorities. Dunia, who had a computer repair shop, is critical of the violence, the management of the camps and the process of reintegration. “I was there in 2008. Since then, nothing has changed. They’re saying seven people died but I personally know 10 people who were killed in the attacks. What do they accuse us of? That we steal their jobs, their women and sell drugs. We’re better at our jobs, it is the choice of the women who they want to marry, and if the crime rates are high, it is the police who is answerable,” he says vehemently. In nearly two months of the camps being set up, Dunia says, there has been just one meeting with the authorities. “Reintegration is a two-way process. But they won’t talk to us. They have to convince me that it is safe to go back to the communities. What do we go back to? I have heard of my Ethiopian brothers who returned but were killed.”

Two sides

As expected, the official version differs from the stories from the camp. “We have daily meetings to resolve issues,” says an official, who prefers to remain anonymous. “Thousands of foreigners have been successfully reintegrated and repatriated,” he adds, watching over a fresh consignment of supplies just outside the camp. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesperson Tina Ghelli believes “the basic needs of those displaced were met at Chatsworth.” The displaced people are also being offered reintegration packages, which consist of two months’ rent, food and domestic item vouchers. “We will also look at providing starter kits to help families restart their livelihoods,” adds Ghelli. Dunia expectedly scoffs at the reintegration package. “What good will that do? We want refugee status, resettlement,” he says. “I was traumatised by what happened. I am disappointed now.”

Since the April attacks, questions over South Africa’s treatment of foreigners have cropped up yet again: Are South Africans xenophobic, perhaps even Afrophobic? While most foreigners have fled their politically volatile nations in search of better and safer lives, in South Africa, the problem is compounded because of an overburdened asylum system, high unemployment and crime rates. “Some of the root causes underlying the attacks are presumed to be competition over resources, particularly housing and services, rivalry for employment opportunities, involvement of émigré communities in criminal activity, misrepresentation of the remarks made by King Goodwill Zwelithini Zulu, the opportunistic exploitation of remarks by South Africans, and incitement and spread of misinformation on social media platforms,” says Tozi Mthethwa, eThekwini municipality’s communications head.

According to the office of the UNHCR, South Africa attracts one of the highest refugee populations in the world. There are 65,000 recognised refugees and around 2,30,000 people seeking asylum. The unemployment rate is a high 25-27 per cent, which means that one in four South Africans is unemployed. The UNHCR, in its profile of the country, states that “South Africa’s national legislation incorporates the basic principles of refugee protection, including freedom of movement, the right to work, and access to basic social services. However, some public institutions do not recognise refugees’ permits, preventing them from benefiting fully from these rights.”

Small businesses have been hit hard by the fresh burst of violence. A 2006 survey, undertaken by the South African Migration Projection, found that 68 per cent of South Africans were opposed to foreigners starting small businesses and 68 per cent also didn’t want them to obtain South African citizenship. Despite being derogatorily called amakwerekwere, migrant populations — especially Somalis and Zimbabweans — have a reputation for intelligence, hard work and cheap labour in an informal economy. Forty-nine-year-old Thobi Sthembile, who has a curio shop in Victoria Market, central Durban, says that businesses have suffered. We were her first customers in two weeks. Her Zimbabwean employees sought temporary shelter in her shop before leaving the country. Struggling to pay this month’s rent, the single mother says, “This feels like war.”

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