Cape backs down on refugees
2008-06-12 13:32
Cape Town - The Western Cape provincial government has backed down on its high court bid to force the City of Cape Town to accommodate refugees at community halls.
Premier Ebrahim Rasool was on Monday night granted an interim order obliging the city to open up 18 community halls to displaced victims of xenophobia.
However legal teams for province and city appeared before acting Cape Judge President Jeanette Traverso on Thursday, where counsel for the province announced that the parties had "reached agreement" and the application was being withdrawn.
Each side would pay its own costs.
Finding a solution
Head of provincial disaster management Hildegard Fast said afterwards that city and provincial officials were committed to sitting down and talking about "a solution that is best for the displaced people and best for the city and province also".
"We are most certainly committed to finding a solution," she said.
The province says it disagrees with the city's establishment of special camps to house displaced people, and that they should be housed closer to the communities they were displaced from to aid reintegration.
It has been trying to move refugees out of Soetwater, one of the five camps.
The city said after Monday night's court order that it supported the provincial government's bid to either re-integrate people into communities or help them with repatriation.
But in the process the province should rather use facilities under its own control, such as empty schools, than community halls, which had to be kept open for other disasters such as flooding.
It said 15 of the 18 community halls listed in the court order were in fact already housing refugees. Cape Town - The Western Cape provincial government has backed down on its high court bid to force the City of Cape Town to accommodate refugees at community halls.
Premier Ebrahim Rasool was on Monday night granted an interim order obliging the city to open up 18 community halls to displaced victims of xenophobia.
However legal teams for province and city appeared before acting Cape Judge President Jeanette Traverso on Thursday, where counsel for the province announced that the parties had "reached agreement" and the application was being withdrawn.
Each side would pay its own costs.
Finding a solution
Head of provincial disaster management Hildegard Fast said afterwards that city and provincial officials were committed to sitting down and talking about "a solution that is best for the displaced people and best for the city and province also".
"We are most certainly committed to finding a solution," she said.
The province says it disagrees with the city's establishment of special camps to house displaced people, and that they should be housed closer to the communities they were displaced from to aid reintegration.
It has been trying to move refugees out of Soetwater, one of the five camps.
The city said after Monday night's court order that it supported the provincial government's bid to either re-integrate people into communities or help them with repatriation.
But in the process the province should rather use facilities under its own control, such as empty schools, than community halls, which had to be kept open for other disasters such as flooding.
It said 15 of the 18 community halls listed in the court order were in fact already housing refugees.
- SAPA