DISPLACED Somalis have been at the forefront of the mounting tension, political mudslinging and sour relations dogging the Soetwater disaster management area in Cape Town.
Now there are calls to close down the camps.
Not long after arriving at the makeshift camp near Kommetjie at the weekend, a group of traumatised Somalis went on a hunger strike.
They refused to deal with South African authorities, and only after United Nations (UN) intervention this week did they agree to start eating again.
The reasons fuelling the strike were twofold: the Somalis say they are angry with the treatment they have received at the hands of the government and they are expressing their dissatisfaction with poor conditions at Soetwater.
Spokesman for Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management Centre Wilfred Solomon-Johannes claims the reasons behind the hunger strike are religious, not political.
“The information the city received is that they want to be fed by the Muslim Judicial Council, and we can confirm that the service providers contracted by us are halal, so I do not know what the issue is,” he said.
But long before they were set up in camps, and before the recent wave of xenophobic attacks crashed on to the shores of Western Cape last Thursday, Somalis were being intimidated in and around Cape Town’s townships.
It is estimated that in 2006 40 Somalis were killed. They blame the police for failing to protect them.
Abdikadir Mohammed Noor fled war-torn Somali three years ago to settle in Khayelitsha.
“The police also looted the shop before they helped me get away,” he said, after both his shops were looted and burned last week.
Western Cape police spokesman Billy Jones said: “There are structures in place for people who have complaints against the police and we will follow them up with an investigation, but people can’t make allegations without specific details.”
He said he was not aware of the Somali hunger strike.
Soetwater came under the spotlight this week when the emergency facility refused the media access on Monday after allegations that a skirmish had broken out between Somali and Malawian refugees and that police had fired rubber bullets.
Like many temporary camps dotted around the province, Soetwater has been criticised for poor living conditions and lack of resources.
The project is being managed and co-ordinated by the City of Cape Town.
“We have responded to the situation effectively and efficiently. All our operations are going according to plan. If you look at the standard of basic municipal services, including healthcare, you will find that Cape Town is following the law, and is providing these people with adequate respect and services,” said Solomon-Johannes.
Various human rights groups disagree. The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has openly expressed its concern at the inadequacies of camps such as Soetwater.
On Tuesday, a coalition of rights groups issued a joint statement condemning the city for setting up internment camps in isolated areas.
They are calling for all individuals to be sheltered as close to where they originally resided, so that they can be near their regular health facilities, schools and places of employment.
The lack of efficient healthcare facilities within the camps has also come under attack.
“Filling up camps with thousands of people in close proximity is a severe infectious disease risk,” said AIDS lobby group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).
Abdikadir Mohammed Noor echoed this sentiment, as he lay under a thin blanket in the corner of a tent, wincing in pain.
“More than 500 people came to my shop and they beat me. I now have a kidney problem on my left side.
“No one comes to see me. Then yesterday they only give me a painkiller. I want to go to hospital,” he said.
The city said it was conducting risk assessments at sites such as Soetwater, but is concerned it may be more traumatic to move the refugees right now. The TAC is campaigning to get the camp closed.
It wants the city to start looking at the voluntary reintegration of displaced people back into their communities, and is considering legal action against the city.
Amid the dissent, the ongoing African National Congress (ANC) and Democratic Alliance (DA) hostility has again reared its head.
The ANC in the province is opposed to the DA-led city’s approach to how and where refugees are being sheltered.
Premier Ebrahim Rasool’s spokesman, Jeremy Michaels, says the provincial government wants displaced foreigners re-integrated into their communities immediately.
The provincial government has set up a mediation and integration task team to oversee the process.
But many Somalis do not want to be re-integrated — they would rather be repatriated.
“ We rather go to Somali, it is better. Instead of dying here, I would rather die there, in my country. I have 18 people that I send food and money to in Somalia. I have nothing in my pocket now, I have nothing in South Africa,” said Noor.
With about 3000 foreigners at Soetwater, the city has stopped any further intake of refugees. The winter is upon Cape Town. Cold and angry, it seems that Somalis such as Noor are now the casualties of yet another war: the political and administrative one ravaging Western Cape.
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