Tensions mounted on Thursday among foreigners displaced by xenophobic violence amid demands that the UN should step in to help with what looks set to become a long-term refugee crisis in Africa’s richest country.
About 300 people, mainly Somalians, began a hunger strike in a camp north of South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, after attacking aid workers and other foreigners, police said.
One police officer was seriously injured and two foreigners suffered minor injuries in clashes on Wednesday. Protesters also cut an electricity cable and a water pipe in the camp.
In the southern town of George, one Somali man was killed in a knife fight with another Somali over donated clothes, police said.
More than 50 people were killed and some 40,000 foreigners fled their homes as a result of violence that erupted earlier this month in Johannesburg and spread to the rest of the country, according to central government figures — although this is likely to be a big underestimate.
In Cape Town alone, there are nearly 20,000 displaced people, divided among churches, community halls and tent camps.
Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille was mobbed when she visited the city’s largest camp — a tent city for 3,000 people on the beach near one of South Africa’s most famous scenic spots, the Cape of Good Hope.
A large crowd surrounded her, calling for UN protection and holding signs reading: “We don’t want to stay in South Africa. We don’t want to stay in a no-man’s land.”
Mothers with young babies lay on blankets inside a large striped marquee as dozens of people waited in line for food handouts on the Atlantic shore — a sight that would have been unthinkable last month.
More than 30,000 Mozambicans have so far gone home, and many Malawians are following suit. Somalis also say they want to go back to their country, but don’t have the means to get there because it is too far and therefore they need UN help.
Many Zimbabweans say they can’t go home because of the economic and political meltdown there.
Yusef Hassan, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in South Africa, said the UN agency has given aid to those seeking shelter, and offered support to help authorities.
But he offered little hope to everyone demanding UN intervention.
“The responsibility to protect the rights of those people is that of the government that has given them asylum, and in this case that is the government of South Africa,” Hassan said.
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