By Phillip Nyalungu
The people who are staying at the refugee camps at Wingfield Military Base and Paint City are mainly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Congo Brazzaville, Cameroon, Somalia, Nigeria, Burundi, and Rwanda – black Africans running away from persecution in the townships and informal settlements. These people have claimed that their lives are not safe in South Africa and hope the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will repatriate them to the third country with Canada being their first choice.
Two years ago they conducted a sit-in protest on the pavements and streets of Cape Town demanding to be repatriated to a third country. These protests took place at Green Market Square (GMS) and outside the UNHCR offices in Cape Town and Pretoria – lasting six months and one month, respectively.
Under the Disaster Management Regulation linked to COVID, they were evicted from the protest camps in the city center and taken to refugee camps with marquee shelters that were erected in Wingfield Military Base (WMB) and Paint City (PC) in Bellville on the 8th of April 2020. It is extremely unlikely that a third country (nation-state) will provide them with asylum.
It is now a year since these refugee marquees have been running. However, the minister of Home Affairs, Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi recently announced that the two refugee centers will be closed down. It was also announced that on the 30th of April the chemical toilets at the refugee camps would be removed and the water and electricity would be cut – in a bid, it seems, to force them to move (at the time of writing [mid-June] the cutting of services had not yet been implemented despite the threat). Indeed, they were given two options: reintegrating into communities in Cape Town or being sent back to their countries of origin.
So far 100 families, about 600 refugees (including children), at WMB have decided to take the reintegration option. There’s a one-off payment of R1500.00 per family for reintegration. Considering they have to start everything from scratch this amount is too little and insensitive. It is clear the South African government is unwilling to understand their circumstances. Instead, it has a condescending attitude towards them and they are being conspicuously ignored. Yet decisions are made about their lives – without their knowledge.
On Thursday, 29 April, a day before the government had threatened to stop the “service” provision, 120 refugees from PC were brought to the WMB. Their leader, Jean-Pierre Balous was arrested in March 2021 and he faces deportation pending the outcome of the case – following 41 people have already been deported by the South African state. “There’s now only Women and Children at Concern (WCC) left at PC in Bellville” said Gideon Andeka, 47.
Regarding the Friday deadline, the refugees said there was communication going on between their representative and the South African government. The outcome was that they were given between two more weeks and a month to remain at WMB and PC. A middle-aged refugee woman said that if they are evicted they will have nowhere to go if they did not want to be returned to their country of origin or be resettled in local communities. She said that if evicted "we are prepared to walk to the nearest border" preferably to Namibia. She added that they wanted the option of going to a third country.
Gideon is from DRC and his family (wife and four children) moved to WMB on April 10, 2020. They arrived in South Africa in 2008 and 2009 respectively. His first and last born children were 9 and 2 years old (they are now 20 and 13). The family rented a house for R3000.00 per month in Delft, Cape Town.
Gideon worked for a year as a security guard, during which time he shared a single room with others to save enough to start his own business. In the following year, 2009, Gideon opened a tuck-shop in Kalkfontein, Kuils River about a 15 minutes’ drive from Delft. The tuck shop was in someone’s yard and Gideon had to pay R3500.00 a month rent for the site. Gideon ran his business from a 6m by 3m container which he bought.
To supplement the family income, Gideon's wife Elizabeth Andeka (44) sold second-hand clothes for the church, proceeds of which were paid to her by the pastor. Gideon showed me the picture of him in his tuck-shop. All the shelves were filled to the brim with a stock.
They could send all the kids to school on the money they made. The firstborn, Ester Andeka (20) was in grade four when she started school in Sunray Primary School in 2011, Delft. She then went to Delft Technical High from 2015 to 2019.
The family kept going until October 2018 when Gideon's second-born son, David Andeka 15 died mysteriously. Then about a year later, his tuck-shop was broken into and everything was stolen. All the money he had was invested in the stolen stock and he had nothing left to replace it. As a consequence, he had to close the tuck shop for three months – while borrowing money to buy new stock.
He borrowed R60 000 from three different people. They lent him R20 000 each. He had to pay back these loans with 25% interest. He subsequently reopened the tuck-shop again late in December 2019.
About four months later, one day he was walking downtown in the streets in Cape Town when he saw people sitting outside at the front office of the UNHCR. He said he approached them and in his words:
I asked why are you sitting here? Asking for the reason why people were sitting there. They told me they are fighting for their [human] rights. From there I decided to join them because I had no money to pay rent. That's when I came with my family to live here at the camp.
On moving to WMB, he would commute to his tuck-shop in Kalkfontein – a 30-minute drive. Tragically, his shop was robbed again. He said: “I received a call while here [WMB] in the evening, my tuck-shop is broken into and been petrol-bombed”. Gideon has since opened the case regarding both robbery incidents. The case numbers are Nr Cas 410/9/2019 and Cas 291/4/2020.
Ester wrote her matric exams in 2019 and received her results while living in the camp. She got Tvet Colleges entry pass, but cannot further her studies because refugees don’t qualify for NSFAS.
Her younger brother and sister have just started grade 8 and 7 in Delft Technical High and Road West Primary School, respectively. Following the family’s move to the refugee camp, they had to stop going to school and never went back.
Ester said, "If we are not washing clothes, help with cooking, or playing soccer or volleyball outside then we are always sitting by our tent”. Gideon throws in,
“My children are still traumatized by the mystery of their brother's death. If he was sick or the cause of the death is known to the family, it would be better. This is also worsened by the bombing of our shop.”
At WMB there are about 20 makeshift kitchen shared by families living there. Some families do their cooking outside. “We used to cook together but not anymore to avoid squabbling”, carries on Ester.
“We currently depend on donations from good Samaritans. They bring clothes, food, soup, toiletries. We currently have people who come every Saturday. They bring soup and bread in the morning. There Other donors like church. They bring parcels of food for each person or family. It depends on how much they bring.”
“Sometimes we go sleep hungry. Because they don’t come every day. They come when they can” Gideon interjected. Due to the high unemployment levels at WMB and PC, most people living there depend soley on donations. While many of the refugees have been looking for jobs, if they do find any work it is usually only piece work.
There are female and male chemical toilets on the west and east of WMB. These are owned and serviced by Sanitech and Mshengu contractors, respectively. There’s a generator which runs from 6 PM to between 7 and 9 AM. The generator is used for lights at night and charging cell phones. The generator is owned and managed by Disaster Risk Management. There's no free WIFI or data and refugees have to buy their own data. Additionally, they have to use firewood for cooking.
The water is piped from the municipal grid to the water tap behind the marquee. Lutula (not his real name) one of the refugees and a qualified medical Doctor – also from DRC - told me they were sharing the water with their neighbours, in the informal settlement nearby along with the food donations if there’s extra.
Disclaimer: Edited 30 June 2021 - contact for edit log
Comments