{"id":243413,"date":"2022-11-18T16:38:54","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T14:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/500-cape-town-unhcr-refugee-protesters-living-in-wretched-conditions\/"},"modified":"2022-11-18T16:38:54","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T14:38:54","slug":"500-refugees-living-in-wretched-conditions-in-cape-town-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/500-refugees-living-in-wretched-conditions-in-cape-town-camp\/","title":{"rendered":"500 refugees living in wretched conditions in Cape Town camp"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Tariro%20Washinyira\/paintcity2.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/500-refugees-living-in-wretched-conditions-in-cape-town-camp.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Three years since the UNHCR refugee protests began, about 500 refugees, including 200 children, remain at Paint City in Bellville. Photos: Tariro Washinyira<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Three years after refugees started their protest outside the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner, 500 people are still living at Paint City camp in Bellville without proper sanitation.<\/li>\n<li>They still cling to the demand to be resettled in another country although the UNHCR says there is very little prospect of this happening.<\/li>\n<li>Home Affairs, which was responsible for the camp, has not replied to our questions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Three years ago in October 2019, refugees <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/protesters-camp-outside-unhcr-offices\/\">started a protest<\/a> at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) offices in Cape Town and Pretoria. They were demanding resettlement in a country other than South Africa.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/500-refugees-living-in-wretched-conditions-in-cape-town-camp.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>After protracted protests, relocation to various camps and the Covid pandemic, the UNHCR managed to reintegrate about 800 refugees back into communities and helped 70 with voluntary repatriation.<\/p>\n<p>But about 500 refugees, including 200 children, remain at Paint City in Bellville. They still refuse to return to South African communities and cling to the dream of being relocated to another country.<\/p>\n<p>They have been living without showers since 2020. They say there are water outages and since the beginning of this month they have no toilets at all.<\/p>\n<p>They have resorted to makeshift bathrooms \u2013 wooden pallets placed on the ground and screened off with blankets. The men use a sandpit.<\/p>\n<p>Food is prepared for the whole camp on an open fire.<\/p>\n<p>Refugee leader Hafiz Mohammed said the last toilets were removed on 1 November. There were initially 20 toilets and they were regularly serviced. These were reduced to ten and not serviced. He said people now relieve themselves in plastic bags and dispose of them in bins.<\/p>\n<p>Mohammed said initially there were 20 showers, but these were removed in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery week we also experience water cuts for three days \u2026 We then go around the neighbourhood asking for water,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>A Burundian asylum seeker, who delivered a baby three weeks ago, said, \u201cLast week I didn\u2019t take a bath for three days, because we had no water. I am waiting for UNHCR to relocate us. I used to stay in Khayelitsha, running a restaurant. In 2019, they stole everything and burned down my container. I came here [to South Africa] 15 years ago and I am still an asylum seeker. My eldest child, 14, has never been to school. She has no birth certificate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Asked why the refugees persist with their demands, Mohammed told GroundUp: \u201cUNHCR should not hide behind Home Affairs. It should come to carry its mandate to assist us to leave South Africa. Without a valid refugee status, you can\u2019t find work, you can\u2019t buy a house and open a bank account. We don\u2019t want to stay in South Africa any more. We are saying enough is enough. The only thing we want is for UNHCR to take us to a safe country where our children can have a future. Anywhere in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Tariro%20Washinyira\/paintcity_1.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/500-refugees-living-in-wretched-conditions-in-cape-town-camp-1.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Meals are prepared on an open fire for everyone. Refugees take turns making food. They say they eat once a day.<\/p>\n<p>Laura Padoan, spokesperson for the UNHCR, said the agency is no longer directly engaged on site, but refugees continue to access legal partners for advice on issues such as documentation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe UN Refugee Agency is concerned for the welfare of the refugees and asylum seekers in Paint City and we are keen to see a solution to their situation as soon as possible.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cResettlement to a third country is a very limited option for refugees worldwide, is subject to quotas offered by receiving countries, and is not offered on a group basis.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUNHCR is not in a position to arrange transfers of people to other countries in the region; this would require refugees obtaining visas on an individual basis from the country they wish to travel to.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do not wish to see refugees, particularly the children, living in these unsanitary conditions, which is why we are urging refugees to either reintegrate into communities, or to take up the offer of voluntary repatriation [to their country of citizenship].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The City of Cape Town referred our questions to Home Affairs, which has been responsible for the camp since its inception.<\/p>\n<p>Questions sent to Home Affairs a week ago have not been answered. We will add a response if and when it is received.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Tariro%20Washinyira\/paintcity_toilets.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"warn_big\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/500-refugees-living-in-wretched-conditions-in-cape-town-camp-2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">The women\u2019s \u201cbathroom\u201d is screened off with blankets and there is a wooden pallet to stand on.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/500-refugees-living-in-wretched-conditions-in-cape-town-camp.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three years since the UNHCR refugee protests began, about 500 refugees, including 200 children, remain at Paint City in Bellville. Photos: Tariro Washinyira Three years after refugees started their protest outside the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner, 500 people are still living at Paint City camp in Bellville without proper sanitation. They still [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":243414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-243413","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/500-refugees-living-in-wretched-conditions-in-cape-town-camp.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}