Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has sharply criticized the forced closure of South African migrant camps

The camps, holding 1,200 foreigners driven from their homes by May 2008's xenophobic violence, are being shut around the city of Johannesburg. This is despite a ruling from the Constitutional Court to keep them open. In September, it ruled a full hearing should decide if it was legal to shut them. The provincial government in Gauteng argues it is now safe for the foreigners to return to their homes. The camps were set up following attacks in which 62 people were killed and thousands displaced. The camps that are being closed are those at Glenanda, on Rifle Range road, south of Johannesburg and Boksburg, east of the city and a third at Rand airport. According to MSF, which has been working in the camps, around 1,200 people have been forced out. "We are very worried," said Alexis Moens, project co-ordinator for MSF. "When people go back to their homes they have been attacked," he said.