SOUTH AFRICA:THOUSANDS OF displaced victims from South Africa's xenophobic attacks last May face eviction on Monday from the government camps established during the violence as a sanctuary for them.
The six shelters in Gauteng province were due to be closed by provincial government officials yesterday, but a last ditch legal challenge filed by a group of human rights lawyers in the constitutional court against the decision may delay their closure.
After deliberating the challenge's validity, the court said yesterday it would hear the application made on behalf of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa to continue providing shelter for the displaced at the start of next week.
Up to 2,500 people remain in the camps in the province - and 4,500 more in camps nationwide - because they are too afraid to return to the townships they fled three months ago.
However, thousands of others have already returned to their communities, with few reports of backlashes against them.
The foreign nationals' legal team is also asking the court to force the government to publish its plan for reintegrating the victims of the xenophobic violence, as officials have been criticised recently for doing little to engage them in the planning of the process. "Authorities have not communicated any plans for the reintegration of the displaced, nor has it properly engaged in a dialogue with the camp residents about options for their immediate future," French medical charity Médicins Sans Frontières said in a statement recently.
On Wednesday, the high court ruled that dismantling the camps was not a violation of the rights of those taking shelter there, and that the government had done enough to protect them.
The shelters were established after tens of thousands of Zimbabweans, Mozambicans and other Africans fled their homes across South Africa's townships last May to escape a wave of xenophobic attacks.
The attacks left more than 60 people dead and hundreds injured.
Shortly after the camps were established officials issued those foreigners who had lost everything in the violence with temporary six month identifications, and also fast-tracked their asylum applications if they had no status.
However, on Thursday hundreds of applicants received letters informing them of their failure to obtain refugee status.
Home affairs spokeswoman Siobhan McCarthy told reporters the department was trying to give everyone a decision yesterday.
If the shelters are closed, those who appeal will spend the duration of the process in Johannesburg's notorious Lindela repatriation centre.