Refugee goes missing in CT
2008-09-06 20:16
Johannesburg - A Somali resident of Cape Town's Blue Water shelter for refugees disappeared when he went swimming in False Bay near the shelter on Saturday, a City of Cape Town spokesperson said.
The man, in his twenties, went swimming with two other residents of Blue Waters when he disappeared.
He was not found in a search by police divers and the National Sea Rescue Institute but the search will resume again on Sunday, city spokesperson Pieter Cronje said.
Earlier on Saturday, relocation of the people displaced by xenophobic violence in the Cape Town area continued, with residents of some camps being moved to Bluewaters, Cronje said.
About 200 people will be relocated, Cronje said, and, because most are Muslim, will be allowed to stay until at least the end of Ramadan.
They have arranged facilities for people within the safety zones to observe the holy period, he said.
After that the City of Cape Town hoped to be more "persuasive" than "forceful" in closing the camps.
By Saturday evening everybody had left the Soetwater camp and it would be decommissioned, Cronje said.
About 30 people stayed behind at the Chryssallis community hall.
Cronje said reintegration was going well, with communities like Masiphumelele welcoming residents back and apologising to them.
Many had moved into one of the approximately 220 informal settlements around Cape Town that house about half a million people.
However, a letter claiming to be from a group of people associated with the National African Chamber of Commerce that warned Somali residents to move on the grounds they were taking business away, did not help, he said.
"It is unacceptable and it bedevils the situation," said Cronje.
He understood that a case of intimidation had been opened with police, but it was not known how this case was progressing.
Thousands of people across the country were displaced by xenophobic violence in May, which also left over 60 people dead.
Shelters in Gauteng are also gradually closing and consolidating.
- SAPA