Friday, October 3, 2008

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres says South Africa has halted aid for some foreigners displaced during the xenophobic violence of May 2008

According to MSF, some 700 migrants in a camp near Pretoria have been left without security or food. "This is an attempt to push people out and is completely unacceptable," an MSF spokesman said. The authorities want to close all camps hosting the thousands of displaced in the attacks in May by 4 October 2008. "The authorities at the Acasia camp have stopped providing food and there is no longer any management in the camp," said Jonathan Whittall, programmes director for MSF. "This is once again an attempt to push people out of the camp and is completely unacceptable." The United Nations says that around 80,000 were driven from their homes during May's attacks in which 62 people were killed. Most of the people in the Acasia camp are from Somalia, Ethiopia and Burundi and MSF says many have refugee status. The violence - which caused the worst bloodshed in South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994 - began in a township north of Johannesburg before spreading to other parts of the country.

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