CAPE TOWN - The Breeze Valley Municipality will be closing the De Doorns refugee camp at the end of this month and integrate refugees into the South African communities. This was said by Charles Ntsomi, the mayor of the Breede Valley where De Doorns refugee camp falls under. At a media briefing in Capetown on Friday, Ntsomi said the refugees were to be removed and integrated before the World Cup in June.
The refugees will be removed from the camp since the South African law does not allow us to keep people in camps. We felt it is better to do it before the World Cup. We do not want to see people in camps during the World Cup that is the crux of the matter.
The municipal spokesperson, Manfred van Rooyen, said they will assist the refugees to integrate into the communities they came from. He said they would be assisted with black plastics and starter kits and poles.
The People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP) coordinator, Braam Hanekom, said his organisation was strongly against this move.
This is unreasonable, dangerous and reckless. We think its a move attempting to intimidate the people into leaving when its not safe to do so. The local community is not yet ready to accept them back,” he said.
He said the municipality had run out of resources and also it did not want to be seen to be supporting foreigners.
Braam said it was a joke that the Breede Valley municipality was talking about moving the people when it had not issued any notice of eviction and had not even approached the courts. He said PASSOP was prepared to approach the courts if any move was made to illegally evict the refugees.
The mostly Zimbabwean refugees moved into the sports field in November 2009 when they were attacked by locals who accused them of stealing their jobs and accepting low wages on the farms.
About 1200 Zimbabweans were said to be still leaving in the tents in the camp. The foreigners who had valid papers were threatened to be turned into braai and turned into KFC (Kentuky Fried Chicken) if they returned.
Meanwhile in Johannesburg Zimbabwean refugees living at Central Methodist Church were last week given a reprieve, after Bishop Paul Verryn, who runs the centre, was allowed to resume his duties at the church.
Bishop Verryn had been on suspension since January this year, on allegations that he had flouted the churchs rules and regulations in his fight against government over the relocation and treatment of the about 3 500 refugees who live in the church.
This was after the Gauteng Local had continued to send police officers and social workers to intimidate and harass the refugees, threatening to throw them out and close the refugee centre.
Bishop Verryn resisted such attempts and fought with government social workers who tried to forcefully take away children from the church to places of safety around the city.
The Bishop took the government to court and demanded that a curator should take over the issue regarding the refugee children, as he wanted them to be released from the church only to better places.
The church accused the Bishop of having made the court application without its consent, while the second charge was that he had disregarded presiding Bishop, Ivan Abrahams instruction not to speak to the media.
However, an internal arbitration process cleared Verryn last week and allowed him to return to the church and resume his duties.
We cleared him and he is free to return to the church. I do not know if the church would want to restart the charges against him, but for now he is free to return said Arbitrator, Peter Le Mortee.
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