Sawt Falasteen - Malawians crowd makeshift S.African camp desperate to get home

Frustration and anger are building at the makeshift camp at Sherwood Park, where some have been waiting for days for buses to take them back to Malawi, more than 2,000 kilometres (1,300 miles) away.

The camp has grown to as many as 10,000 people, according to some reports, all prepared to give up lives they have struggled to create in South Africa and leave as soon as possible.

Men, women and children are forced into a few tents during the chilly winter nights as they wait for buses to arrive.

A handful of mainly religious and aid groups hand out food, water, sanitary towels and nappies. There are queues for everything.

The few toilets are overwhelmed, outbreaks of diarrhoea have been reported and the stench of urine and faeces hangs heavy.

Hasani Amadi, 25, took part in a protest this week that drove off two busloads of supporters of a fringe anti-undocumented immigrant group who wanted to visit, a move seen by some migrants as a provocation.

"Why are these people coming here to harass us?" Amadi asked.

"They said we must move from the informal settlements... Now we are here, trying to get back home, they are following us," he told AFP.

Across the country, groups of South Africans have over the past weeks staged marches and door-to-door visits to tell undocumented migrants to leave by June 30.

The demand is unauthorised, but has struck fear in many as it is broadcast in sometimes menacing social media posts.

One of Africa's largest economies, South Africa has long attracted migrant workers from across the continent, both legally and illegally.

Previous outbreaks of xenophobic violence have claimed several lives.

"All I want to do is to get home," said Amadi, who has been in South Africa for 10 years and worked at a small company that made coffins.

- 'Painful' -

Gazembe Bwana, 44, said he arrived from Malawi 14 years ago and had a job as a tiler, building a relationship and a home that he now had to leave behind.

"I worked so hard. I created jobs for myself and didn't take anyone else's job," he told AFP. "But now I'm leaving with only one bag.

"What has happened to me in South Africa is very painful," Bwana said, preparing to board one of the few buses that had already arrived.

Police used teargas and rubber bullets to quell a new outburst Wednesday when some men refused efforts to move them to another centre, where their documents were to be verified before their repatriation.

Nasira Mbongo, eight months pregnant, said she could hardly breathe because of the teargas.

"I have been waiting here since Monday. I have signed all the documents, but my name has not been called," she said.

"All I want is to get home and deliver my baby safely. I will never consider coming into South Africa again. If I have to starve, I would rather die of starvation there," in Malawi, she said.

She had lived in Durban for the past three years. "Our landlady told us that she had been warned to take out all foreigners or else her property would be burnt down with foreigners inside. We were forced to go," she said.

Around 1,340 women, children and sick men had already boarded buses back to Malawi, said Cyril Mncwabe, head of the KwaZulu-Natal province home affairs department.

As the situation at Sherwood risked becoming overwhelming, authorities were planning to cordon off the area and establish another refugee centre, he said.

"More and more people are arriving. We have no control of who comes in and goes out," he said.

Many of the Malawians at Sherwood admitted they did not have valid papers to be in the country, claiming they had been lured by syndicates promising jobs in factories, homes and mines.

Ghana, Nigeria and Mozambique have also started repatriating their nationals from South Africa because of the latest campaign against foreigners, accused by some locals of taking jobs and resources.

X.Habash--SF-PST