Foreigners to be deported

Johannesburg - Trucks will be taking foreigners from the Glenanda camp in Johannesburg to deportation centres within the hour, a home affairs spokesperson said shortly after 15:00 on Tuesday.

People who did not sign up for the temporary ID cards, valid for six months, or did not have legal papers, would be deported, said Cleo Mosana.

People at the camp had begun packing in preparation. Home Affairs Minster Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula arrived at the camp along with other government officials and was briefed by police.

Approximately 850 people of the 1 800 residents at the camp had apparently signed up for the IDs.

Seven foreigners were also arrested at the camp on Tuesday, for intimidation and fighting with police, after they allegedly resisted plans to remove them.

Mosana told reporters at the camp: "People's lives are in their hands. They must decide. The government has created the environment."

She said the department would still allow people to sign the forms for the temporary IDs on Tuesday.

'What choice do we have?'

A foreigner from the Democratic Republic of Congo told Sapa that he was afraid to be re-integrated back into a South African community.

"We also fear being sent back to our homelands. So what choice do we have? All the refugee camps that I have been in did not have police or security guards, but in South Africa they do. They have been mistreating us," he said, not wanting to be named.

Some foreign nationals not affected by the xenophobic attacks had been sneaking into the Glenanda camp to get temporary identity cards, said Gauteng provincial government spokesperson Thabo Masebe earlier.

"They can't do that. This is a special arrangement for victims," said Masebe. He said the fence at the back of the camp had been broken by people sneaking in.

The camp's population had risen from 1 500 to about 1 800 even though some people had been leaving to return to their neighbourhoods.

Taken to deportation centre

Earlier those foreigners who did not sign up for the temporary IDs, valid for six months, were taken out of the camps in trucks bound for the Lindela repatriation centre to be deported. However the trucks returned to the camp with the people still in them.

Masebe said the foreigners were brought back because officials wanted to complete administrative procedures before taking them away.

He also said people who had signed for the IDs would soon have to make their own arrangements because the camp would be closed, possibly next week or at least within two weeks.

"All government has to do is create safety. People are now free to go back (to the areas they were living in before the attacks)."

Last week, police clashed with foreigners, exchanging stones and rubber bullets after some residents held security guards hostage at the shelter, the biggest displaced persons camp in Gauteng.

- SAPA