'The tension is there for war'
2008-06-02 21:58
Cape Town - Immigrant leaders in South
Africa said on Monday that thousands of foreigners frustrated at
miserable living conditions were on the point of retaliating
against a wave of xenophobic attacks.
Tens of thousands of immigrants have been forced to take
refuge at temporary shelters around the country after mobs began
attacking migrants three weeks ago, killing at
least 62 people.
"The tension is there, already, for a war," Deo Kabemba Bin
Ngulu, a leader from the Democratic Republic of Congo,
told reporters.
Human rights groups have condemned the conditions in the
tented shelter camps set up to house the displaced, with
freezing temperatures at night and the threat of disease.
"They are terrorised, they are traumatised ... and some of
them (can) resort to violence because they think, now,
everywhere is violence," said Somali businessman Hoosein Omar.
'We are African...'
The large Somali community in Cape Town has been a
particular focus of anger from poorer residents of the city, who
accuse the migrants of stealing their jobs.
Hundreds of mostly Somali traders marched to Parliament on Monday to protest against the anti-immigrant
attacks.
"We are African. We are from this soil. I am not a foreigner
... and this soil is Africa," Abdul Kadir Karakoos, a Somali
leader in Cape Town, told reporters.
He said 600 Somalis had been killed in anti-immigrant
violence in South Africa since 2002.
More than 50 000 Mozambicans and Zimbabweans have returned
home because of the unrest, which has now subsided.
The violence started in Johannesburg's Alexandra township on May 11
before spreading to other cities, with mobs wielding machetes
and axes driving migrants from their homes.
Facilities inadequate
The international medical humanitarian group Doctors Without
Borders, said facilities for the displaced were inadequate.
"After living in unacceptable conditions for up to three
weeks, the people displaced are now being relocated by the South
African government, without proper access to information about
their rights and options, to sites that are unprepared and
insecure," the group said in a statement.
"They say they are being treated like animals."
The government, widely criticised for its
initial slow response, said more than 1 300 people had been
arrested in connection with the violence, which it says is being
driven by criminal elements.
- Reuters