Glenanda refugee shelter closed

Johannesburg - The Gauteng provincial government has closed down the refugee shelter in Glenanda, on Rifle Range Road south of Johannesburg, a spokesperson said on Wednesday.

"We have closed Glenanda... everybody moved out there," said Simon Zwane.

Two other camps offering shelter to xenophobia victims in Boksburg and the Rand Airport are also in the process of being closed down.

"The process of giving financial assistance to refugees was not completed yet at the Boksburg and Rand Airport shelters last night [Tuesday]," said Zwane.

United Nations agencies are giving refugees money to find alternative accommodation. Provincial government spokesperson Thabo Masebe on Tuesday said the camps needed to be closed by October 4 when the government's disaster declaration expired.

Zwane said a count would be done on Wednesday morning to determine how many people were still in the camps and whether the Boksburg and Rand Airport shelters needed to be consolidated into one.

Alternative accommodation

Not everyone qualified for the financial assistance - which ranged between R700 and R1 000 - for several reasons. But those people were still being "encouraged" to find alternative accommodation.

"We have done what we can," said Masebe. "They need to move on with their own lives. They can't expect the government to shelter them on a permanent basis."

The shelters were opened in May when a wave of xenophobic violence swept through the province claiming 62 lives, leaving hundreds injured and tens of thousands of foreign nationals displaced.

The Constitutional Court recently ordered that the shelters stay open until at least September 30 to give the government and legal representatives of the refugees time to discuss options for those who said they had nowhere else to go.

The Constitutional Court is scheduled to hear arguments on the matter on November 20.

- SAPA