WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2010-09-21 Time: 09:00:02 Posted By: News Poster
By Brian Hatyoka
JUST like any other person, refugees and asylum-seekers have a right to work and freedom of movement as well as the right to access social services.
However, this doesn’t seem to be the case for some refugees and asylum-seekers living in South Africa.
After fleeing their own countries due to various reasons, among them poverty, political and tribal conflicts only to be forced out of their shelters in South Africa, several refugees and asylum-seekers are now left with no option but to spend nights outside the roofless United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) building.
They know that the UNHCR office is supposed to help them in one way or the other and so, they have continued sleeping outside the building as a way of pressing the UN body to address their concerns.
Some are asking the UNHCR office to help them with shelter, food, financial support, resettlement in other country other than South Africa while others who are sick are asking for medical assistance either within South Africa or abroad.
They depend on passers-by and well-wishers for food and other services with continued hope that some day the UNHCR would address their concerns.
They sleep on top of old makeshift mattresses and they are frustrated.
In an interview outside the UN building on Thursday evening, a Burundian national Patrick Nahimana said he wants to be relocated to another country because he has no shelter in South Africa.
“We have been sleeping outside the UN building for several weeks and months. I was kicked out of my shelter at Blue Skies in January 2010 and now I have no shelter.
“We have tried to talk to officials at the UNHCR office but they don’t want to attend to our concerns. I don’t feel safe to stay in South Africa and so I am asking the UN and other donors to help me out of here to another country where I can have shelter and meet my needs,” Nahimana said.
He said since xenophobia attacks occurred in 2008, in which many foreigners were killed and displaced, refugees and asylum-seekers especially those living in townships are having security problems.
“I don’t want to go back to my own country (Burundi) because people there are still being prosecuted and killed. I want to go to a country where I can be safe. We are asking for international protection which is only offered by the UN,” he said.
Hikizimana Andrea, also Burundian, said she has been sleeping outside the UN building since June 2010 seeking medical assistance to help cure her problematic kidney.
“I have had a kidney problem since 2008 and I don’t qualify for treatment in South Africa because I am an asylum-seeker. I have been to several hospitals in the country but they can’t treat me.
“Doctors have recommended that I should be helped to get treatment outside South Africa or within the country so long as the UN pays my medical bills. The UNHCR office here knows my story but they are not doing anything to help me. I am feeling weak and I may die soon,” she lamented.
A Somalian national, Abdullah Amini Massudy, has been sleeping outside the UN building to seek protection because he claims his life is in danger.
“I am a Bantu Somalian, from a group of people who are usually killed by a tribe called Abugal. I left Somalia in 1994 and went to Kenya where I faced similar problems like I have faced here.
“The same people (Abugal) killed my brother in Kenya and it was from there I came to South Africa in 2008. The Abugal people are also here in South Africa where they have continued to threaten me. This is why I prefer sleeping outside the UN building to seek protection. I want a lasting solution to my problem,” he said.
Omary Abubabary Dudu is a Kenyan who wants the UNHCR to help him with accommodation, food and treatment of his toothache.
Ndayizeye Abdallah Harerimana, another Burundian national, says he was put in prison in 2006 in South Africa and through the help of a human rights body, he was released in 2007.
Harerimana wants the UNHCR to help him seek compensation of more than R3 million for being sent to prison without any case against him.
But the UNHCR is not just one deaf and uncaring commission and as senior regional external relations officer for the Southern Africa office Tina Ghelli explained, the UN organ is making effort to help the refugees and asylum-seekers through its implementing partners and non-governmental organisations such as the Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) and the Refugee Aid Organisation.
Ms Ghelli, who declined to delve into specific individual cases preferring confidentiality, said quite a good number of refugees and asylum-seekers had been helped solve various problems but that others were refusing to be helped.
“Most of them (refugees and asylum-seekers) have been helped. But I must mention also that others refused to be helped and we can’t force them to take up our offer. Some have even refused to be weaned and become self-reliant.
“We don’t deal with individual cases of refugees and asylum-seekers, our implementing partners do. You contact JRS or other implementing partners on what they are doing to assist refugees,” she said.
Ghelli, who noted that South Africa has no refugee camps, said the main responsibility of taking care of refugees lay with governments where refugees resided saying the UN only dealt with vulnerability cases.
JRS South Africa director, Father David Holdcroft confirmed that his organisation was currently helping refugees in areas of self-reliance as well as education and health and wondered which refugees or asylum-seekers were spending nights outside the UN building.
Father Holdcroft, whose organisation is based in Pretoria’s Acadia area, said JRS had stopped dealing with issues of accommodation and food and was instead focusing on such areas as health and medical support.
“I am not sure of which refugees and asylum-seekers who are sleeping outside the UN building. Maybe they are trying to attract publicity. Otherwise we have helped many of them in the past and we continue to do so.
“Despite our limited resources, we are helping them to be self-reliant by starting up their own small businesses.
“We consider their applications based on individual cases. We also help children to go to schools which accept refugees,” he said.
But when asked to comment if his organisation was making regular visits to the UN building to meet the affected people, Fr Holdcroft said most refugees and asylum-seekers knew where his office was and they were free to approach him.
“Just yesterday (last Wednesday), one of them came to seek our services and I will meet him tomorrow (last Friday). If need be, I will personally go to the UN building and meet those people who are sleeping outside,” he said.
Original Source: 
Original date published: 21 September 2010
Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/201009210603.html?viewall=1