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South Africa: Chaos At Nyanga Refugee Centre
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Cape Argus (Cape Town)
25 April 2008
Posted to the web 25 April 2008
Cape Town
Police remained on high alert at the Home Affairs Refugee Reception Centre in Nyanga a day after violence erupted as desperate refugees tried to gain access to the building.
Earlier this week three refugees were injured when police opened fire with rubber bullets to disperse a crowd that had attempted to force its way on to the centre's premises.
Unlike Wednesday, many refugees had given up on gaining entrance to the premises and not many turned up on Thursday morning.
By 8.30am on Thursday, Home Affairs security guards had already locked the gates and police were instructing the crowd of refugees to go home, while pushing them away from the gate with their batons.
Two police vans drove straight into the crowd in their attempt to clear the refugees from the gate and some had to scatter to escape being run over.
A female security guard, who had threatened to remove the Cape Argus team from the periphery of the Refugee Reception Centre on Wednesday, was pushing and shoving refugees, telling them to leave the area.
"I don't even care if you take pictures of me," she yelled, between her shouts directed at the refugees.
Refugees and businesses in the area say they are fed up with the chaos at the Refugee Reception Centre at Airport Industria.
A businessman said he and his staff had had enough of the "havoc" in the area which started when the Refugee Reception Centre moved to Nyanga two months ago.
The businessman, who asked not to be named, said the uncontrollable situation had created a problem for the business community because daily they could not get into or out of their buildings with taxis, vendors and thousands of refugees in their way.
Referring to Wednesday's incident, he said that Home Affairs should not pass the buck to police but rather sort out their own mess or just remove the operation from the area.
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"Home Affairs should not call the police when they are overwhelmed by a situation they have created.
"They should create the necessary infrastructure to accommodate these people. They fled wars in their own countries, now they are in a war here," he said.
People Against Suffering Suppression Oppression and Poverty (Passop) spokesperson Braam Hanekom said that Passop had assumed that the situation at Home Affairs had stabilised.
Look among these people for skills they are the willing transfer of skills we need,they fill a gap they are not stealing jobs from South Africans.
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