No to Afrophobic Evictions: We Stand with Refugees and the Poor

PRESS STATEMENT

24 June 2025

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. 

On 18 June 2025, DA Ministers Leon Schreiber (Home Affairs), Dean Macpherson (Public Works), and Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis appeared publicly on Voortrekker Road, holding court papers and announcing their intention to evict refugees from the Wingfield site. With inflammatory language, they branded these survivors “illegal immigrants” "who bring “dirt” and “disorder”—a calculated, xenophobic deflection from the government’s own failures in housing, service delivery, and governance.

This is not just a legal injustice. It is a moral disgrace. These families are survivors of war, economic collapse, and systemic exploitation. Instead of receiving protection, they are scapegoated for South Africa’s deepening crises - while the real causes, such as privatisation, elite corruption, and spatial apartheid, remain unchallenged.

The DA-led Western Cape government has banded together with the Patriotic Alliance (PA), its partner in dehumanising refugees. This is particularly the case in Ward 56, where both the Wingfield camp and Gate 7 informal settlement are located, and where the state is reviving the old apartheid tactics of divide and rule. PA Ward Councillor Cheslyn Steenberg has openly mobilised protests to remove the refugees.

We, the undersigned civil society organisations, activists, and community members, denounce these acts as part of a broader neoliberal war on the poor and displaced. Just three days after the DA Ministers’ announcement, a 12-meter section of the Wingfield refugee tent was slashed during the night—exposing families to winter weather.

No one knows who did it or why, but we know this much: the act came after dangerous political rhetoric. These forced evictions are not isolated. They are part of a broader attack on the poor. Refugees may be the first targets, but South African residents of Gate 7 - who also face landlessness, unemployment, and economic exclusion - will be next.

Slashed in the Night - Part of the Wingfield refugee tent was vandalised around midnight on Sunday, June 22 - just days after DA ministers threatened mass evictions. Vulnerable families, including children and the sick, were left exposed to the cold, rain, wind, and the public gaze along the busy Voortrekker Road. Photos by Nobuhle - resident and activist from the nearby Gate 7 informal settlement.

The background of this crisis is seen in late 2019 when refugees and asylum seekers in Cape Town organised a peaceful protest outside the UNHCR offices demanding recognition, protection, and dignity. Their demands were met not with support, but with repression, abuse, and neglect. Most of these refugees are Black African asylum seekers - primarily from the Democratic Republic of Congo - who have been denied documentation and services for years. Home Affairs have obstructed their cases through chronic delays and discriminatory processes; the UNHCR’s Greenmarket Square office was closed and in-person refugee services were no longer offered. Instead, people struggled with new and impersonal online systems. 

During the COVID-19 lockdown, these protestors were forcibly relocated to Wingfield and Paint City. Their demand for third-country resettlement was not opportunistic - it was a response to trauma, statelessness, and despair. Their primary and consistent plea remains: protection, documentation, and freedom from harassment.

What they have received instead is state-sanctioned neglect and violence—amplified by silence, normalised through criminalisation, and increasingly carried out through acts of physical and symbolic harm. South Africa’s liberation legacy must not be hijacked by those who use it to trample on the dignity of the vulnerable. We will not remain silent as war survivors, the displaced, and the stateless are vilified and discarded. Because dignity has no borders!

*Afrophobia is a specific form of racism that refers to any act of violence and discrimination including racist speech, fuelled by historical abuses and negative stereotyping, and leading to the exclusion and dehumanisation of people of African descent.

Join Us in Solidarity

We are calling on all progressive organisations, activists, journalists, and members of the public to attend and witness solidarity meeting between the residents of Wingfield and Gate 7:

📍 Location: Voortrekker Road, between the Wingfield Refugee Tent and Gate 7 Informal Settlement.

📆 Date: Sunday 29 June 2025

⏱️ Time: 2:00 - 3:00 PM

📝 Agenda: Building solidarities between refugees and South Africans

If it starts to rain during the meeting, we’ll move inside the tent.

Gate 7 residents have already declared:

“If the City of Cape Town dares to evict the refugees at Wingfield, we will resist. We know we are next.”

Their courage reminds us: an injury to one is an injury to all.

Contact:

Couteavx (Wingfield Refugee Camp):

Daff, Prince, Massamba, Milambo and Nkambwa

+27 300 0590

Nobuhle (Gate 7): 068 299 3212

Nosiviwe (Gate 7): 074 071 5082 

Endorsements:

Kopanang Africa Against Xenophobia (KAAX)

Khulumani Support Group

Save Our Sacred Lands (SOSL)

Housing Assembly

African Legal Students Association

Justice Chapter

The International Labour Research and Information Group (ILRIG)

USAWA Learning and Healing

Voice of Azania 

Ntirhisano Community Centre (NCC)

Chronicles of Refugees and Immigrants (ChRI).

Yetu Infotech Collective

Africa Unite (AU)

Grassroots Resilient Stories