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Cape refugee numbers drop
11/06/2008 09:08 - (SA)
Cape Town - About a fifth of the 20 000 people displaced by xenophobic violence in the Western Cape have been either reintegrated or repatriated, provincial officials said on Tuesday.
The provincial disaster management centre said the total number of displaced people was now estimated at 15 910, the bulk of them in the Cape Town metro.
The news came as the City of Cape Town said it would fight a High Court interim order that it open up community halls to foreign nationals displaced by last month's xenophobic violence.
Acting Judge Pakama Ngewu issued the order on Monday night, following an urgent application by Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool.
Thousands moved into six camps
Ngewu also interdicted the city's metro police from preventing displaced foreigners from leaving the Soetwater camp or any other camp they were currently living in.
Following last month's xenophobic attacks, the city opened a number of community halls to displaced foreign nationals.
However it also moved thousands of them into six camps, the largest at Soetwater, a beach resort on the Atlantic coast.
Mayoral spokesperson Robert Macdonald said on Tuesday that the city would oppose the order, which is due to come back to court for confirmation on June 18.
He said the city supported the provincial government's bid to either re-integrate people into communities or help them with repatriation.
However, in the process the province should rather use facilities under its own control, such as empty schools, than community halls.
He said the continued use of the halls did not take into account broader public interests.
"We need to keep community halls open in the event of other disasters such as flooding," he said.
"Last winter we had 35 000 people affected by flooding, and many people had to be temporarily accommodated in community halls.
"We've also pointed out that in some cases, accommodating foreign nationals in halls risks increasing tensions in communities."
Macdonald rejected the suggestion that the Metro Police were stopping people moving out of the camps.
"Displaced people are free to move in and out at all times," he said. "Under no circumstances have we ever tried to control their movement."
He said 15 of the 18 community halls listed in the court order were in fact already housing refugees, and had been since the violence began.
Rasool's application came after a bid by the province earlier on Monday night to relocate some of the Soetwater refugees who reportedly feared for their safety after acts of violence by their fellows.
A busload of Soetwater refugees was given shelter at a youth centre in Tokai.
- SAPA
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