City of Cape Town to reduce safety sites for displaced persons

By Henry Booysen
20 June 2008

The City of Cape is to reduce the number of safety sites for persons displaced due to last months xenophobic attacks due to the continuing bad weather.

People currently being held at Soetwater near Kommetjie will be now sheltered at the Blue Waters safety site in Strandfontein as the site is more sheltered.

According to the Director of Communication for the City of Cape Town Pieter Cronje the Blue Waters site can accommodate more people, is closer to residential and commercial areas and more shelters from strong winds.

“The overall aim is to reduce the number of people in the safety which the City is managing. This will help ease the management pressures of the sites. The sites will be reduced and ultimately closed through repatriation or re-integration of the displaced people,” says Cronje.

He elaborates that because bad weather is expected for the weekend a joint disaster operations centre will be established by the Disaster Risk teams from the Province and the City.

“Work between the officials of the Province and the City together with the Department of Home Affairs with the UNHCR performing an advisory board will continue,” he says.