A makeshift refugee camp, housing over 1 000 desperate asylum seekers, has sprung up on the Foreshore.
This was the startling picture that emerged when a Cape Argus team visited the area around Customs House this week.
Asylum seekers are flocking to the city centre in the hope of being assisted by the Department of Home Affairs in their bid to get legal papers.
More than 1 000 immigrants, who want to beat the daily bus queues which take them to the Home Affairs offices in Barrack Street, are now camping there.
On the site, there are three mobile toilets put up by Home Affairs. Only two of these were working on Tuesday. There is no running water or bathroom facilities and the stench of urine permeates the air.
When the Cape Argus visited the site on Monday evening, men, women some pregnant, others with babies and children were getting ready for "bed".
There were no mattresses, not even much cardboard. The refugees were simply wrapped in thin blankets and lying on the pavement.
Applications for asylum papers are processed in Barrack Street. Because that road is so narrow, people converge at the Foreshore and are bused there.
The Home Affairs Foreshore office closed two weeks ago following the sale of Customs House.
During the visit by the Cape Argus, the immigrants admitted that their unofficial campsite was a health hazard.
Most of them spend up to three weeks on the pavement, but when they leave, their spots are taken up by new refugees.
Most are Zimbabweans, peppered with a few Somalis, Congolese and Malawians.
Simba Tibape, a Zimbabwean banker, has been in the country for about two months. He has been working on a farm in Worcester.
"This is the only place I know where I can't be arrested," he said. "It is not an ideal place. Where else in the world would you find a thousand men, women and children sleeping on the same pavement?"
Tafadzwa John, a property evaluator from Harare, said: "We are here 24/7; we don't even move around as we might lose a place in the queue."
Last October, the Barrack Street office started to process application for new immigrants to ease pressure at the office on the Foreshore.
Immigrants were transported by pick-up trucks, but early this year the department introduced buses.
According to a Home Affairs official, who did not want to be identified, initially about 100 people were served each day, but the number has risen to about 240. But, since Friday, an IT system upgrade has had teething problems and only about 100 people have been processed.
Braam Hanekom of the refugee rights group Passop pointed a finger at the City of Cape Town for not providing adequate facilities to the immigrants.
But the city's safety and security portfolio committee chairman, JP Smith, said on Wednesday that the refugee camp was not of the city's making.
"It's the refugee centre's incapacity... and the city cannot necessarily fix that."
However, he said the city had met with Home Affairs and would help reduce the backlog.
- Cape Argus
This was the startling picture that emerged when a Cape Argus team visited the area around Customs House this week.
Asylum seekers are flocking to the city centre in the hope of being assisted by the Department of Home Affairs in their bid to get legal papers.
More than 1 000 immigrants, who want to beat the daily bus queues which take them to the Home Affairs offices in Barrack Street, are now camping there.
| 'This is the only place I know where I can't be arrested' |
When the Cape Argus visited the site on Monday evening, men, women some pregnant, others with babies and children were getting ready for "bed".
There were no mattresses, not even much cardboard. The refugees were simply wrapped in thin blankets and lying on the pavement.
Applications for asylum papers are processed in Barrack Street. Because that road is so narrow, people converge at the Foreshore and are bused there.
The Home Affairs Foreshore office closed two weeks ago following the sale of Customs House.
| 'We don't even move around as we might lose a place in the queue' |
Most of them spend up to three weeks on the pavement, but when they leave, their spots are taken up by new refugees.
Most are Zimbabweans, peppered with a few Somalis, Congolese and Malawians.
Simba Tibape, a Zimbabwean banker, has been in the country for about two months. He has been working on a farm in Worcester.
"This is the only place I know where I can't be arrested," he said. "It is not an ideal place. Where else in the world would you find a thousand men, women and children sleeping on the same pavement?"
Tafadzwa John, a property evaluator from Harare, said: "We are here 24/7; we don't even move around as we might lose a place in the queue."
Last October, the Barrack Street office started to process application for new immigrants to ease pressure at the office on the Foreshore.
Immigrants were transported by pick-up trucks, but early this year the department introduced buses.
According to a Home Affairs official, who did not want to be identified, initially about 100 people were served each day, but the number has risen to about 240. But, since Friday, an IT system upgrade has had teething problems and only about 100 people have been processed.
Braam Hanekom of the refugee rights group Passop pointed a finger at the City of Cape Town for not providing adequate facilities to the immigrants.
But the city's safety and security portfolio committee chairman, JP Smith, said on Wednesday that the refugee camp was not of the city's making.
"It's the refugee centre's incapacity... and the city cannot necessarily fix that."
However, he said the city had met with Home Affairs and would help reduce the backlog.
- Cape Argus
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