Abush* has been shot. This is already the third time. Last year the bullet hit his chin; his diffident smile toothless since then. This time he was hit in the back and left arm. “Contract killers,” he says quietly with a heavy accent, contract killers from his home country Ethiopia. Nine years ago he fled from political repression and poverty to South Africa, but still they do not leave him alone. He is afraid. Restless, he wanders the streets of Johannesburg all day to escape his enemies. The police and the authorities, they do not listen him. He wants to get away from here, away from the land that once appeared to be a safe haven. But where to, he does not know.
Juma * was also disappointed by South Africa. He has been here for 18 years, half of his life, and he has been unemployed almost as long. He fled the civil war in DRC, a long and burdensome flight; Juma's legs are crippled, since contracting polio as a child, he has had to move on wooden crutches. He says they are the reason that he still has no official refugee status. In the hopelessly overcrowded Application Centers he was repeatedly pushed aside by stronger people with two healthy legs.
Godwin's * legs are healthy, but he has not been able to apply for asylum status yet - he lacks the necessary papers. He had to flee Zimbabwe hastily, hidden in a truck, crossing the border illegally. He has been in Johannesburg for two weeks now, two weeks of living on the street. In his homeland, he worked for the opposition party MDC. It is not a good time for opposition politicians, Mugabe is nervous, says Godwin, his henchman are everywhere. He has heard of people who have disappeared without a trace. He did not want to be one of them. So he set off to South Africa. Like hundreds of thousands of others before him.
South Africa is one of the most popular destinations for refugees in Africa. According to the UNHCR, the country has more than 65 000 recognized refugees and there were about 245,000 asylum seekers at the beginning of 2015. As many immigrants are not registered, the number is much higher - estimated by the International Organization for Migration at between two and five million. They come from DRC like Juma, from Ethiopia like Abush, from Zimbabwe like Godwin and from Somalia, Burundi and Angola. They are fleeing war, repression, persecution, poverty and unemployment. Most of them are crowded in the urban areas of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth or Durban - looking for work, protection and shelter.
Getting to South Africa is simple - the borders are porous, the officials corrupt. To build a decent life is more difficult. Unlike Germany, there is no governmental support, no financial aid or shelter provided in South Africa. Although the minority who enter the country through legal channels or make an asylum application within 14 days are officially entitled to most civil rights – to health care, access to education, public protection and to the right to work - many authorities refuse to recognize the documents and many companies do not want to hire foreigners. Whoever arrives in South Africa with a bag of belongings is usually on his own - asylum applicants like Abush and illegal immigrants like Godwin alike. Their only possible recourse for support is the non-governmental organizations that have set themselves up to help them. And there are dozens registered in Johannesburg, which has the biggest concentration of refugees in the country.
Conversations on war, death and torture
Abush’s first stop after his arrival was the Jesuit Refugee Service. The Catholic aid organization has been around since 1980 and has offices all over the world. In Johannesburg, it has been active for over fifteen years and is therefore one of the oldest refugee institutions in the city. Its office is situated behind a green painted fence in the suburb of Belgravia. Every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday consultation hours are held here: refugees can express their worries and concerns and apply for assistance. Between 50 and 70 come every day; they are helped by only two social workers and about seven assistants. Mzikayise Zulu is one of them. He has been working with the JRS since early 2013, occupying one of the six small offices with plain A4 sheets on their white doors, marked "Education", "Accommodation" and "Health Care". The JRS offers an extensive aid program, including financial subsidies for food, medicines or funeral expenses, shelter, skills training or English courses.
Abush, the refugee from Ethiopia, is the first to be called from the waiting room to Mzikayise’s office. Timidly, he sits down on a red plastic chair and starts to tell of the three men who shot him, of his fear, of the fact that he has lost his job. He worked as a driver for a delivery service, but with his injured arm he can no longer steer. Mzikayise remembers Abush, after his first wounding the JRS supported him financially with his rent.
"Did you go to the police? To the doctor?" he asks. Abush nods. Without a word, he fiddles with his good arm in a blue folder on his lap and pushes over a pile of papers. Mzikayise frowns, he flips through the pages. While he is reading, there is silence in the room for a long time; in the hallway you can hear the hum of the printer and the shouts of children playing in the waiting room.
Mzikayise pushes the documents together. They lack a doctor’s certificate declaring inability to work. Without appropriate documents, the JRS cannot take action - especially in cases like Abush’s. He no longer falls within the primary target group of the organization - newcomers who have been in the country less than two years or require special protection, defined by the JRS as single women, minors or elderly.
Mzyikayise advises Abush to go back to the hospital and return with a medical clearance. He describes who he should address in the clinic and what he should ask for. "You understand?" he asks after each sentence. Abush nods. Then he rises and leaves the room. For Mzikayise, it is the worst part of his job: sending people away due to bureaucratic obstacles, people who need help. "To decide with the brain and not with the heart" as he puts it. But the JRS has its guidelines and outside Mzikayise’s office there are still a few dozen people waiting to speak to him. He tries to deal with ten to 15 cases a day, but even that is far too many, he says. He hears stories of war, death, torture and poverty; they exhaust him. But if someone took hours just to get to see him - how could he send him away? Tuesdays are the worst, this is the consultation day for refugees from DRC and the queues are the longest.
In a wheelchair to South Africa
Congolese and Somalis make up the majority of the refugee population in South Africa. Although, according to the international law on refugees, most would have good chances of getting permanent residence, there are many who, like Juma, the man on crutches, have been waiting for their recognition for years. They do not fall into the emergency aid programs of organizations such as the JRS anymore, but many of them need help anyway.
Juma found it at Redeeming Hope for the Disabled, a local initiative for asylum seekers and refugees with physical and mental disabilities, a tiny operation compared to the international JRS. It consists of six employees, a computer and a house with a garden. Essentially it is the effort of one man: Godel Sefu. Godel is a refugee himself and physically disabled. In 2002, playing soccer in his home country, DRC, he fell so badly that he has been bound to a wheelchair ever since. The accident changed everything: He had to abandon his ambition to become a priest because the Canon Law bars people with disabilities from ordination; his friends turned their backs on him. There was no future for him in DRC and so he decided, five years later, to flee - in a wheelchair - nearly 3,000 kilometers to South Africa. In Johannesburg he found a place to stay but no work. He had to beg to survive. And then came 2008. In South Africa, the year has almost become synonymous for xenophobia; it is when an unprecedented wave of violence against migrants rolled across the country. Houses and shops were set on fire and destroyed, more than 60 people died, thousands lost their homes and livelihoods. It was the peak of a long-simmering distrust between immigrants and South Africans. The UNHCR had been warning for years that unemployment, inequality and an overburdened social system massively fostered xenophobia.
When the riots began on May 12th in Johannesburg, Godel Sefu was right in the middle of it - and defenseless. In his wheelchair, he could not make it to the hastily constructed shelters for refugees in time. A couple hid him and may have saved his life. But the events made it clear to him that Johannesburg was urgently lacking an organization focused on the specific needs of refugees with disabilities - a minority within a minority. The city administration admitted the necessity and provided a house in the suburb of Lenasia, since then the base of Redeeming Hope for the Disabled.
For Godel, it is no longer just about the physical protection. His organization wants to offer people with disabilities the support of a community and to help them to lead a self-determined life. "There is so much potential in us," says the forty-year-old, "when we are given a chance." Behind the house he has launched a gardening project, where the refugees can learn to grow vegetables - for their own use and for sale. In cooperation with local partners, he has organized handcraft programs, sewing- and computer courses. And he tries to help asylum seekers like Juma with their documents.
The sense of community
Most people that visit Redeeming Hope for the Disabled are asylum seekers; very few have refugee status or permanent residence. That is serious especially for the parents of disabled children: schools are expensive in South Africa, in particular for children in need of special care facilities. Refugees, especially when unemployed, often cannot afford the charges. Financial support by the stare is rare – because of discrimination by the authorities or because papers are missing. Elie * says, she has not been given a penny in nine years. Her son is mentally disabled and a victim of war crimes in DRC. He was still a baby when rebels attacked and threw him against a wall because he screamed too loud. Though he is school-going age, he cannot speak and hardly responds to his environment. He sits apathetic beside his mother as she tells of the many unsuccessful attempts to raise money for his support. She registered with the UNHCR and asked for help, but she is still waiting on a response.
Franck* voices the same complaints. Nineteen years ago, he escaped political persecution in DRC to head for South Africa, his eldest daughter, Sarah, was born here. Her birth was complicated, but in the hospital, the doctors refused to treat Franck's wife at first - for xenophobic reasons, he is convinced. Sarah suffered a loss of oxygen and is now severely mentally and physically disabled. She is ten years old but she can neither walk nor talk.
Redeeming Hope of the Disabled provides Elie and Franck with a meeting place and a community, but it lacks the money to help them financially. The organization depends almost entirely on donations, collected in shopping malls or on the streets. Usually, this does not amount to much; the willingness to help refugees is low in the South African population, says Godel Sefu. The relationship between South Africans and immigrants is still strained. Most of the refugees at Redeeming Hope for the Disabled have experienced discrimination and violence. The street stall of Franck's wife was destroyed by a mob in 2008 and in early 2015; it was the livelihood of the family. Franck himself is unemployed, just like Elie. South Africans do not want to hire foreigners, both say. Finding a fairly-paid job is impossible.
A climate of distrust
Partially, Godel Sefu can understand the fears of South Africans. South Africa's asylum system is hopelessly overtaxed, the government seems helpless - and that makes abuse easy. Thousands of immigrants cross the border every year looking for work without having any chance of being recognized as refugees. Since the processing of asylum applications often takes years, they apply anyway: while waiting, they have the right to work and remain legally in the country. Many are from the neighboring countries – five times as many Zimbabweans as Congolese had applied for asylum by the end of 2014, even though their chances of success are low. But the Zimbabwean economy is depressed after years of dictatorial policies and in South Africa, one of the richest countries on the continent, work and wealth seem only a few kilometers away.
However, this is often deceptive. One in four South Africans are unemployed, according to estimates one third lives below the poverty line, social inequality is on the rise. The daily influx of illegal immigrant job seekers appears to many to be a direct threat to their own existence. When the son of President Jacob Zuma referred to the growing number of refugees as a "ticking time bomb" and to migrants as criminals and drug traffickers in a much-talked-about interview early this year, he echoed widespread prejudices. To many, refugees seem like cheaters and beneficiaries of an overstrained South Africa. The government has tried to address the problem with a clampdown and large-scale police raids, followed by mass arrests and deportations.
This is why Godwin, the new arrival from Zimbabwe, did not even go to the asylum authorities. Without a passport they would have sent him to Lindela, he is convinced, to the feared Repatriation Center for undocumented migrants, which repeatedly made the press due to the widespread human rights violations there. But now, after two weeks on the street, Godwin is at a loss. Without identification papers you cannot get far in South Africa. It is impossible to take advantage of the public health system, to buy a cell phone or to find work - and also the outreach of the JRS and many other NGOs can only be accessed with the correct documentation. Godwin does not have many options.
Breaking the bread together
Samantha Kristiansen takes off her heels. It is a Wednesday shortly after six, the sun has just set and the lights on the gas station parking lot are turning on. The thirty-seven-year-old slips into comfortable boots and slickly erects a high display next to her car: "Paballo ya Batho" it reads. It marks the start of a weekly mobile soup kitchen aimed at helping those who fall through the system - the homeless of Johannesburg. I t is led by volunteers only, most of them South Africans who want to help regardless of documents or ethnic origin. Little by little, a handful of them gather around Samantha's car. Eight to ten come on average every week, some regular, others from time to time.
At six-thirty the volunteers drive in a convoy to the first station of the evening, the red truck with the soup pots and 300 loafs of bread on its loading platform leading the procession. The homeless are already lined up halfway down the street, Godwin has queued up too.
Since 1989 Paballo ya Batho has existed as a Johannesburg institution that cares for people who live on the streets. Until last year, the organization belonged to the Central Methodist Church, which played a prominent role in the fight for refugee rights after 2008. But the priorities shifted after a change of leadership. As Paballo was threatened with closure, Samantha Kristiansen and two colleagues took over the project.
The rules of the soup kitchen have not changed, the homeless know them: nobody jumps the queue; everyone gets a plastic cup of soup and half a loaf of bread. There is a second helping of soup, not for bread. For now, the focus is just on the food. Origin, ethnicity, religion, they are irrelevant in the queue in front of the red truck. Peacefully, Zimbabweans, South Africans and Ugandans stand side by side; life on the street wipes out all differences. She has never felt tension, says Samantha Kristiansen. In the riots at the beginning of the year, she asked the police to keep an eye on the gathering, but everything remained peaceful. The victims of the violence are people with property, she explains, shopkeepers, home owners. Anyway, she wonders if all the discussion about xenophobia is more about driving a political agenda than reality. In Paballo at least, they have not noticed it.
After half an hour, everyone in the queue has a cup of soup in one hand and a plastic bag with bread in the other. The first excitement is over, the hunger satisfied. The volunteers of Paballo use the time to get in touch with the people. Paballo wants to be more than just a soup kitchen, it also wants to provide a forum for questions and concerns. Sometimes, someone just needs a new pair of shoes or a coat, but often it is also about legal issues - documents, residence permits and work. Paballo is trying to help here as well and Godwin has heard this. He waits until the crowd has dissolved, then he tells Samantha Kristiansen his story. He tells of his political work in Zimbabwe and of rivers full of crocodiles, where people disappear forever. And he tells how he did not dare go to the asylum authorities and that a forced repatriation could mean his death. He is careful to stress that he is not an economic refugee.
Samantha quotes his words on a printed form. In cases like Godwin’s, Paballo refers most people to partner organizations specializing in law, mostly to the Lawyers for Human Rights. Samantha explains their address to Godwin and writes a recommendation. First thing tomorrow he wants to approach them. He promises to report back next Wednesday, and then he disappears into the darkness, along with hundreds of other half-sated homeless to set up makeshift beds on roadsides and in doorways.
According to some estimates Johannesburg has the largest urban refugee population in the world, and the influx of newcomers will not stop. Without people like Samantha, Mzikayise and Godel most of them would have nowhere to go and no one to turn to. Civil society has stepped in to do the job of a government which seems unable to cope with the situation.
Globally 2015 has seen the biggest migration of refugees since World War 2, but everywhere there is a deficiency in policy vision. That instills fear in many. In South Africa, small businesses of immigrants are demolished periodically, in Germany refugee houses are burnt down. More than ever the world needs the individuals who recognize that it is up to him to help.
Samantha Kristiansen washes out the soup pots. The weak smell of beef and broth hangs in the air.
Mzikayise Zulu closes his office door. The waiting room is empty, the playing children gone. But tomorrow, women and men, girls and boys will crowd here again, among them perhaps Abush with his medical certificate.
Godel Sefu lifts Sarah, the girl who has suffered a loss of oxygen at birth. She turns her head and harks. A meal is cooked in the kitchen next door, a meal for everyone.
"*"Name changed
From Carlotta Voss.
