Financial Gazette (Harare)
Mavis Makuni
11 October 2008
column
Harare — THE recent gruesome slaughter of a Somali woman and her three children in the South African town of Queenstown is a reminder of the unabating problem of refugees, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers and stateless persons in Africa.
South African newspapers have reported over the past week how Saida Mohamed and her children were butchered when a group of men forced their way into her shop in Tambo village in the Eastern Cape. The gang stabbed Mohamed 113 times. It was found she and her 10-year-old daughter had been gang-raped prior to their death. The assailants piled the bodies of Mohamed and her children on top of another. This is the gruesome sight that greeted a witness who discovered the bodies.
South African newspapers report that nine Somali shopkeepers have been killed in Queenstown and East London over the last two months.
A South African police spokesman has insisted that the motive for the killings was robbery and not the xenophobia that erupted in South Africa about five months ago. The first members of Mohamed's family arrived in South Africa in 1992 to escape the turmoil in Somalia after their home had been bombed. Since then various members of the family have been brutally killed, attacked, raped and robbed. One family member has been missing since the xenophobic attacks in May, which former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, described as "shameful and criminal acts".
Saying South Africa was not an island separate from the rest of the continent, he added "Citizens from other countries on the African continent and beyond are as human as we are and deserve to be treated with respects and dignity".
But the peace and security the Somalis hoped to find in their host country has eluded them. Six of the original 11 members of the Mohamed family have died violent deaths in South Africa.
Attacks and other abuses against refugees have continued despite the adoption in 1969 by the Organisation of African Unity of a convention on the safety and security of asylum seekers, which came into force in 1974.
The preamble states that the convention aims to alleviate the misery and suffering of refugees and give them a better life and future.
Article Two of the convention which deals with asylum states: "No person shall be subjected by a member state to measures such as rejection at the frontier, return or expulsion which would compel him to return to or remain in a territory where his life, physical integrity or liberty would be threatened..."
The tragic experiences of the Mohamed family point to the need for these provisions to be more vigorously enforced to protect the millions of African refugees.
The international ecumenical organisation, Church World Service, (CWS) reports an increase over the past year, in the number of Africans fleeing to other countries to escape conflict and persecution in their native countries.
CWS figures show that at the end of 2006, there were almost three million refugees and asylum seekers in Africa. The highest number of refugees was from Sudan where 648 000 nationals sought sanctuary in other countries.
According to CWS, Congo Kinshasa had the next highest number of refugees, with 413 000. Somalia followed closely behind with 410 300. Other countries with high numbers of nationals leaving to seek sanctuary in other countries were Eritrea, Angola, Chad, Liberisa and Rwanda.
The African country hosting the largest number of refugees, according to these statistrics, is Tanzania which has welcomed 485 700 people seeking sanctuary followed by Kenya, which accommodated 337 700. Ironically, Sudan and Chad, which are among the highest sources of refugees on the continent, are also safe havens for about one million Africans who have fled their countries of origin.
The plight of refugees who are forced to leave their homelands because of persecution, coups, civil wars and other causes, was summed up by Zamzam Ibrahim, the niece of the Somali woman murdered with her children in South Africa.
Describing her and her mother's ordeal when they were brutalised by a gang in Blue Waters in the Cape, she was quoted by a South African weekly as saying: "Three men came into my shop and asked me for money. I gave them everything I had. They then told me to go into my room that was behind the shop.
"They said 'When we are done with you, Kwerekwere, you won't stay in this country anymore -- you will run back to your country'. Then they took turns to rape me...I just want to lie down and never wake up because my heart is so sore. I want to die, I truly do."
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