Cape Town - The few remaining portable toilets used by hundreds of refugees at the Paint City site in Bellville have been removed after they were allegedly vandalised.
This comes after shower facilities and most portable toilets were removed from the location earlier this year.
A leader at the refugee site, Hafiz Mohammed, said a truck had come on Wednesday to remove their remaining 10 portable toilets.
“We are more concerned with the negligence and abuses that threaten our life and jeopardise women’s and children’s lives with more infections caused by the non-cleaning of the movable toilets for a period of two weeks which resulted (in) more refugee community members getting infected and sick.
“We are therefore crying (out) against this ill-treatment and extreme abuse we are getting from whatever government department is in charge of offering the cleaning tender,” said Mohammed.
A Department of Home Affairs service provider who was removing the portable toilets said the refugees had asked them to remove them.
“They said they were getting sick from those toilets, so we must take them. We didn’t have a choice. They were threatening to burn the toilets, so we removed them,” the worker said.
Department spokesperson Siya Qoza said they were aware the toilets had been removed.
“The department has been made aware that the service provider has removed the toilets in the temporary shelter in Paint City in Bellville after they were vandalised.
“The shelter in Bellville is temporary, and the department and various other stakeholders have always explained to the protesters that there are only two options available to them: reintegration into the communities they came from (or) repatriation to their home countries. There are no other options. Even international organisations dealing with migration have confirmed that there are only two options available to these protesters,” he said.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said: “UNHCR is not engaged in these protest sites. Still, refugees and asylum seekers can seek information and available UNHCR partner services, as can any other refugee and asylum seeker in South Africa.
“We advise you to get responses from city authorities and the Department of Home Affairs. From our side, UNHCR encourages people to go back into the communities and continue to respect law and order.”
Cape Times