adminThupeyo Muleya Johannesburg, South Africa
SOUTH Africa yesterday started the process of re-integrating displaced foreigners into local communities after closing the Primrose Transition Camp in Johannesburg. The Primrose centre had been housing about 264 people mainly Malawians, Mozambicans and Zimbabweans who had fled their homes in the suburb at the height of the xenophobic attacks.
The three-week disturbances in Johannesburg’s Alexandra, Jeppes-town and Marathon areas have resulted in South Africa deploying the army to bring the situation back to normal.
South Africa’s Minister of Social development, Bathabile Olive Dlamini told journalists during a tour of the camp yesterday that they had agreed with community leaders to re-integrate those who had been displaced and wanted to remain in the country.
Some of the displaced people opted to be repatriated.
“The process has been initiated by the community leaders and we are very confident that these people will be well received. We are one people and it is important that we learn to live together. The leadership in various communities have taken it upon themselves to ensure the safety of the immigrants and we want to warn those involved in criminal activities that the law will take its course,” said Dlamini.
The minister said the Nelson Mandela Foundation had been engaged to help train people on issues around conflict resolution.
She said the re-integration process needed a collective approach if they were to make any headway.
“This is a process we need to approach collectively and we have taken the necessary steps to prepare our communities to co-exist with immigrants. We don’t want to push people to communities which are not ready to integrate. We have a made a commitment to ensure safety for all the people within our communities as government and we will stick to that,” said Dlamini.
“We will work with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) as we escalate the facilitation and involvement of the communities in this process (integration).”
She said the government had come up with a number of interventions to restore order and ensure that violence comes to an end.
Online Reporter