Displaced children bear brunt of South Africa’s crime crackdown

JOHANNESBURG — Like most of the children at the Mayfair camp for internally displaced people, 8-year-old Rosa does not speak English, and without either of her parents, she is not keen to interact with anyone she does not know.

She sits in the lap of Monica Lungah, who is originally from Zimbabwe. Johannesburg is cold in May, and Rosa is wrapped in a thick pink coat, blue tights and dirty brown boots, all given to her when she arrived at Mayfair a few days ago. Despite this, she is shivering and coughing, clinging to Lungah for support.

“Ngiyesaba [I’m afraid],” she whispered.

Rosa and about a dozen other children were taken to Mayfair after Johannesburg authorities arrested approximately 400 people at this beginning of this month as part of an ongoing operation to rout out criminal activity in what they are calling hot spots around the country. The campaign, which is ongoing, is known as Operation Fiela. Rosa’s name, along with other children interviewed, have been changed to protect their privacy.

As of Monday, nearly 4,000 people were arrested in Guateng province, where Johannesburg is located, including 1,650 undocumented immigrants. More than 12,000 people were arrested in KwaZulu-Natal province. The crackdown came after at least seven people were killed in xenophobic mob attacks on immigrants from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and other African countries, driving thousands of terrified families from their homes. Attacks on immigrants are not a new phenomenon in South Africa; in 2008, 62 people were killed in violence that swept through the country and tens of thousands fled to displacement camps.

The center of the violence was in the townships surrounding Durban, in KwaZulu-Natal, and quickly spread to Guateng.

The Mayfair camp, just outside Johannesburg’s central business district, was opened in April by humanitarian organization Gift of the Givers. Mayfair, which at peak capacity was home to 800 people and about 50 children, closed on Tuesday, but several camps and churches in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal are still sheltering those who fled the violence.

According to Katlego Mokgale, the South African Police Services spokesman, the raids and arrests were conducted by the National Defence Force, the Department of Home Affairs, the South African Police Services and the Johannesburg Metro Police Department.

Mokgale wouldn’t comment on how many of the more than 12,000 South Africans and foreign nationals arrested are still being held, or how many children were displaced when their parents were arrested in Operation Fiela. In South Africa suspects must be charged within 48 hours of being arrested. 

The first group of people arrested in Johannesburg, most of them foreign nationals, were taken to the city’s Central Police Station, and their children were mostly sent straight to Mayfair. Police have said those arrested were suspected of crimes such as possession of unlicensed firearms, robberies, house break-ins, drug possession, theft, fraud, kidnapping, rape and murder. But there has been an outcry among human rights groups, who say police raided homes and worker dormitories without evidence of criminal activity and that they targeted immigrants.

“They just came to our homes, kicked in the doors and claimed they were there because the community was committing too much crime,” said Marc Gbaffou, chairman of the African Diaspora Forum, an organization that works with immigrant and South African communities around the country.

At Mayfair earlier this month, shortly after the initial mass raid, a few women were surrounded by large groups of children, taking care of others’ as well as their own.

Alex, who is about to turn 7, had not seen her parents for several days, since the night they were arrested. She spoke Zulu but was willing to speak through Lungah, who interpreted, about what she remembered of the night her family was taken from their home. As Alex talked, she kept careful watch over her baby brother, who lay sleeping in a stranger’s arms. Alex was usually the one to hold him while he slept and the one who made sure he ate three meals a day.

She said she woke in the cold night to loud noises and lots of banging. She and her brother were rounded up by officials, along with dozens of other children, and taken to Mayfair, where they were met by strangers and a field full of tents.

Alex’s story is just one of many that the children told through Lungah. Each memory included bright lights, loud noises and the terrifying feeling of being dragged from their beds.

While Lungah managed to stay with her children in Mayfair, there were dozens of others who could not. According to Emily Jacobs, the camp’s organizer, Gift of the Givers was able to get most mothers of the youngest children released and taken to the camp, but it sometimes took a day or two.

“Children, especially babies, cannot be without their mothers,” she said.

Demelza Bush of the national nonprofit Sonke Gender Justice said she saw a 4-month-old-baby whose mother was detained being nursed by another woman in the camp.

After closing Mayfair, Gift of the Givers assisted those leaving by helping them go back home or reintegrating them into the communities they were previously a part of.

“We’re paying their rent for a month or two,” said Jacobs, “just to get them back on their feet.” The hope is that in reintegrating these families, their children will be able to readjust and feel safe in their new homes.

“They are traumatized,” said Lungah. “Who knows how long it will take for them to move on with their lives?”