Tension ran high at Soetwater on Tuesday night where about 3,500 people displaced by xenophobic attacks are housed in the city's largest safety site.
Thirteen buses ordered by the province to evacuate the camp stood empty as conflicts between authorities and refugees erupted inside the site.
Armed Metro Police had accompanied nearly 20 Bambanani volunteers sent to dismantle vacant and broken tents.
Misinterpreting this as forced removal, Somalians, Zimbabweans and Congolese again threatened to drown themselves in the ocean.
Women with babies strapped to their backs and shouting men ran towards the ocean, but no one went into the water...
The province came prepared with a list of suitable relocation centres for each group. Officials asked to meet individual leaders because there was no one venue that could hold the camp's 3,500 residents...
"The province is stepping in and then angering the city and the problem is that no one is telling the people what is happening."
About a fifth of the 20,000 people displaced by the violence in the Western Cape have been either reintegrated or repatriated, provincial officials said on Tuesday.
The provincial disaster management centre said the number of displaced people was estimated at 15,910 the bulk of them in the Cape Town metro.
Hans Smit, the city's executive director of housing, said the city would continue to challenge an urgent High Court interdict obtained by the province on Monday night forcing the city to open 18 community halls to those displaced by the attacks.
The city said it wants the Western Cape provincial administration to first use facilities under its own control, and that community halls are not the best way to accommodate the refugees.
It also said that 15 of the 18 halls mentioned in the interdict were already being used to house the refugees.
A counter court bid by the city yesterday stopped three of the city's community halls - those in Scarborough, Bellville and Retreat - from being opened to the displaced.
"Using community halls risks exacerbating local tensions and extending the xenophobic problems that we are trying to address," Smit said.
He said the halls had to be kept open in case of natural disasters, such as flooding.
The latest spat between the city and the province comes after the province's unscheduled relocation late on Monday night of about 22 people from Soetwater because of safety concerns...
- Cape Times
Thirteen buses ordered by the province to evacuate the camp stood empty as conflicts between authorities and refugees erupted inside the site.
Armed Metro Police had accompanied nearly 20 Bambanani volunteers sent to dismantle vacant and broken tents.
Misinterpreting this as forced removal, Somalians, Zimbabweans and Congolese again threatened to drown themselves in the ocean.
Women with babies strapped to their backs and shouting men ran towards the ocean, but no one went into the water...
The province came prepared with a list of suitable relocation centres for each group. Officials asked to meet individual leaders because there was no one venue that could hold the camp's 3,500 residents...
"The province is stepping in and then angering the city and the problem is that no one is telling the people what is happening."
About a fifth of the 20,000 people displaced by the violence in the Western Cape have been either reintegrated or repatriated, provincial officials said on Tuesday.
The provincial disaster management centre said the number of displaced people was estimated at 15,910 the bulk of them in the Cape Town metro.
Hans Smit, the city's executive director of housing, said the city would continue to challenge an urgent High Court interdict obtained by the province on Monday night forcing the city to open 18 community halls to those displaced by the attacks.
The city said it wants the Western Cape provincial administration to first use facilities under its own control, and that community halls are not the best way to accommodate the refugees.
It also said that 15 of the 18 halls mentioned in the interdict were already being used to house the refugees.
A counter court bid by the city yesterday stopped three of the city's community halls - those in Scarborough, Bellville and Retreat - from being opened to the displaced.
"Using community halls risks exacerbating local tensions and extending the xenophobic problems that we are trying to address," Smit said.
He said the halls had to be kept open in case of natural disasters, such as flooding.
More than 35,000 people were affected by flooding last winter and many were housed in council halls.
The latest spat between the city and the province comes after the province's unscheduled relocation late on Monday night of about 22 people from Soetwater because of safety concerns...
- Cape Times
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