Refugees and asylum seekers in Durban divided over move to Lindela
A divide has emerged among more than 300 refugees and asylum seekers living on a Durban pavement for the past four months.
The group set up camp outside the Home Affairs offices in May following alleged attacks on foreign nationals, who are demanding safe shelter.
Now, government plans to move them to the Lindela Repatriation Centre in Krugersdorp have split the group, while some welcome the move for safety and food, others insist Lindela is a deportation site and are demanding aid to resettle locally instead.
The refugees living on the pavement are still awaiting news of the transport that will take them to the Lindela.
The provincial government has offered them two choices to relocate to the Lindela Repatriation Centre in Gauteng or return to local communities.
Spokesperson of the refugees, Princess Adjei says although they will not have freedom of movement at the camp, they will have shelter and food.
“I am taking the opportunity, and I am going to Lindela because number one; here in South Africa we have been made clear that there is no way that we can have refugee camps, it is not allowed and it is a law, we cannot have refugee camps.
That is why the refugees and asylum seekers are in the communities as everyone else.
And therefore, we cannot stay here on the streets forever just because we want the government to provide us with shelter.
We’ve been crying for four months for the government to give us shelter.
Government has given us shelter which is at Lindela that is why some of us are going there.” Two weeks ago, March and March movement held demonstrations in the area and clashed with the group.
Five refugees were injured and two were arrested for public violence.
Kafuti Muyumba from the Democratic Republic of Congo refuses to move to the Lindela camp, he says his life and family is here as he is legal in the country.
Muyumba says he lost both his parents in Congo and he fled to South Africa with his older sister that raised him since 1990.
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