Africans face xenophobia in South Africa

A year after a wave of xenophobic violence against immigrants in South Africa, embers of intolerance apparently still glow. Zimbabweans and Somalis face threats from fellow Africans.

By Martin Barillas  
Saturday, July 11, 2009

In Cape Town, the targets are immigrant shopkeepers, who are mostly Somalis who fled civil war in their country. Shops owners of some of the poorest districts of Cape Town held meetings to discuss how to get rid of shops run by foreigners. In mid June 2009, Somali shops keepers in one of these districts received threatening letters, giving them a few days to close and move away. Foreign shopkeepers, two from Somalia, one from Zimbabwe and one from Bangladesh, were victims of the latest episodes of intolerance towards immigrants.

The association of Somali immigrants in South Africa has denounced the situation of impunity which protects people who commit xenophobe crimes. This attitude is intensified by the local authorities' behaviour towards Zimbabwe refugees. Several human rights groups in South Africa criticized the arrest last week of more than 300 people, mainly exiles from Zimbabwe, who had taken refuge at Johannesburg Central Methodist Church.

The police raided the church in the early hours of July 4th, following numerous complaints by district shopkeepers of cases of “vagrancy”. Most of the persons arrested were refugees from Zimbabwe, including women and children. Some of them were seriously ill. They included a blind and deaf South African woman, an acutely psychotic South African man, a pregnant mother, and at least 10 children. In total, some 344 people were forced to leave the church.

According to information collected by Medicines Sans Frontiers, which operates in the area, policemen pushed many of the people to the ground threatening some with stun-guns.

The church offered shelter to about 4,000 mainly Zimbabwean exiles, who fled their homes and came to South Africa in search of safety and work. Most of the Zimbabweans in the church fled their country last year because of post-election violence, while more recently others fled their country's economic collapse. Once in South Africa, the refugees find little opportunity for work and face widespread xenophobia. Consequently, Christian churches are the ones offering food and medical care to most of the exiles from Zimbabwe.

Source: SperoNews, July 11, 2009