PRESS STATEMENT - Refugees residing at the Wingfield Refugee Tent and Paint City in Kensington and Bellville, Cape Town, are facing a renewed wave of state-backed Afrophobia and brutality. This is not just a legal injustice. It is a moral disgrace.

The Ntirhisano Community Centre (NCC) strongly condemns the councillor of Ward 56, Chesyln Steenberg for his deliberate, xenophobic targeting of the residents of the Wingfield Refugee Camp.

Soweto, South Africa — On Saturday, March 29, 2025, about 20 residents of Elias Motsoaledi gathered at the corner of Kokwane and Ingwe Streets to officially revive the Motsoaledi Concerned Residents (MCR) — a grassroots community movement initially founded in 2005. The meeting took place outside Mr. Mboweni’s Spaza Shop and marked a powerful call for unity, urgent youth support, and infrastructural development.

Education and activism go hand-in-hand. To support its organising efforts, MCR soon initiated programmes that aimed to educate his community about the value of food sovereignty, literacy, and organising, the Pambili Motsoaledi Community Project, a community center that housed a garden, library, and meeting place was started. 

What is emerging now is a picture more complex than the headlines suggest. With the Zama Zamas (informal miners) gone, local businesses that thrived from their presence—whether legally or not—have collapsed. Taverns, salons, bottle stores, and rental homes sit abandoned or operating at a loss. In the words of one local resident, “You can just smell hunger in Khuma.”