Funds needed for displaced Zimbabweans

The Red Cross put at 3 000 the number of people — many of them Zimbabwean nationals who are without shelter or food after their shacks at an informal settlement outside De Doorns, about 140km from Cape Town, were attacked and demolished by local South African residents. The relief agency said it needed the cash to help provide urgently needed blankets, water, food, first-aid kits, toiletries, clothing, fuel for transport, and logistical support for the displaced.

Red Cross spokesman Kelvin Glen told IRIN that the aid agency had responded to a call for help by local authorities on 15 November to provide meals and blankets for about 80 people, “but the numbers have risen since”. Most of the displaced are being sheltered in a marquee tent pitched on the local sports ground. Hundreds of families fled the De Doorns informal settlement last Tuesday as violence against foreign nationals flared up following tensions over seasonal jobs, according to police.

“It’s a thing with a history,” police superintendent Desmond van der Westhuizen said, adding that the outbreak of xenophobia was not a one-off incident, but an annual occurrence in the area. “We must all come on board to solve this problem,” he said. Police said they had not yet received reports of physical violence allaying fears of a recurrence of last years xenophobic attacks that engulfed most of the country killing about 60 people and displacing thousands of foreign nationals.

According to police tensions had been building since last week as the locals accused the foreigners from Zimbabwe as well as some Lesotho nationals of accepting lower wages than locals and robbing them of seasonal jobs on farms.

Local residents then ganged up last Tuesday to prevent foreigners from boarding trucks of farmers coming into the town to pick up workers for the day. The locals also demolished a number of shacks rented by the foreigners before police intervened.

Last years violent attacks started on May 12 in Johannesburgs Alexandra township of the poor before spreading to other townships in Diepsloot, Hillbrow, Jeppe, Cleveland, Thokoza, Tembisa and provinces of KwaZulu-Natal, North West, Mpumalanga and Western Cape leaving thousands of African immigrants without shelter or food after their homes were looted and burnt down.

Rampaging mobs of South African men armed with machetes, axes, spears and guns attacked and killed immigrants looting their property in an unprecedented two-week wave of xenophobic violence that shocked a nation, which prides itself as among the most tolerant societies in the world. (Additional reporting by IRIN)