Mon séjour en Afrique du Sud (Cape Town)

The City of Cape Town has called on the national government to invite the UN to help with refugee relief efforts.

“We require practical assistance … in the form of the resources and expertise of (the UN) … which has a large department specifically re-sourced to deal with crises of international magnitude such as (this),” Cape Town mayor Helen Zille said in a press release today.

This follows a meeting yesterday where Arvin Gupta, a UN High Commission for Refugees official, criticised the fact that people displaced by violence were being held at camps across the city and said the UNHCR was willing to assist the government but had not yet been approached for assistance.

Gupta said South Africa had the option to invite international bodies to help it deal with the crisis, but had so far chosen to rely on its own resources.

Zille said: “We welcome the critique of (Gupta) regarding the safe zones that the city has set up to provide immediate shelter and resources for the thousands of displaced people.

“We fully agree that people should be re-integrated into their communities if this is what they want. We have called for a peace-keeping force of the SANDF in order to facilitate this …

“We cannot, however, force displaced people to return to their communities against their will.”

Zille added that nobody was being forced to go to the safety sites, and nobody was being prevented from leaving.

“On the contrary, hundreds of people are demanding entry every day and many of the sites are now full to capacity,” she said.

Zille also called on the provincial government and the Defence Department to make additional venues available to accommodate refugees and said people’s needs could not be processed at “scores of tiny locations across the city”.

Zille said that while the city was doing its best to assist Home Affairs in processing people’s requirements and had seconded 45 staff members to the department, the UNHCR and embassies were urged to “become involved in addressing the plight of the thousands of displaced people who wish to return to their countries of origin”.

Emotions ran high at the hour-long meeting between Gupta, civil society and refugees at the University of Cape Town yesterday.

Displaced foreigners of various nationalities were at loggerheads with Gupta, as some would not allow him to leave the meeting and said that an hour was inadequate and that their grievances had not been properly heard.

The group surrounded Gupta and blamed the UNHCR for not assisting them adequately.

“All I want to do now is to return to my country … we are never going to be safe in this country,” said Rosaline Mulongo from Uganda.

Throughout the meeting, Gupta reiterated that while the foreigners were the responsibility of the South African government, one of the UNHCR’s mandates was to protect “externals” within a country.

Fatima Khan of the UCT Law Clinic, who chaired the meeting, said more than 500 displaced foreigners had approached the Law Clinic with a list of grievances.

She said some refugees had asked that South Africa be taken to an international court as the attacks in recent weeks were genocide.

An unidentified foreigner said: “The people make South Africa, despite the time that I have been South Africa I have never been accepted …

“Why does the UNHCR not take South Africa to an international court to hold it to its commitments under the UN charter?”