For Immediate Release

Contacts:    Adam Hussein: +254 722 649 024
                        Dismas Nkunda: +256 753 310 404
                        Chidi Odinkalu: +234 803 419 0668

Nairobi/Johannesburg/Abuja, 2 June 2008: In a statement issued today, the Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative (CRAI), a pan-African non-governmental coalition, announced that it will be deploying a high-level fact-finding mission to South Africa and the neighboring countries in June 2008 to investigate xenophobic attacks on foreigners and facilitate redress for the victims.

"We are concerned that the government of South Africa is failing in its duty to protect all persons within its territory, irrespective of their nationality", said Chidi Odinkalu and Dismas Nkunda, Co-Chairs of CRAI. "The mission shows the concern of the rest of the continent about what is happening."

Attacks on foreigners in South Africa have included unlawful killings, mass assault, and forced displacement. More than fifty people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced. Although the police have assisted some victims, there are disturbing reports that in other cases they have stood by and not intervened to halt the violence.

The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights decided at its 43rd session, held in Swaziland May 7-22, that it would send its Special Rapporteur on Refugees, Asylum Seekers, Internally Displaced Persons and Migrants, Mr. Bahamé Tom Nyanduga of Tanzania, to intervene with the South African government on behalf of the victims of these attacks.

On 26 May 2008, two weeks after the outbreak of the violence, South African President Thabo Mbeki constituted a cabinet-level, inter-ministerial task team to address the violence. In a broadcast on the same day, President Mbeki described the violence as "an absolute disgrace", promising that his government would "not countenance such savagery".

The African Union has yet to make an official statement on the situation.

"We welcome the South African Government's condemnation of the violence - but it was far too slow to respond to the situation and take measures to protect the victims", said Dismas Nkunda, Co-Chair of CRAI. "And the silence of the leadership of the African Union in this situation has been both deafening and inexplicable."

CRAI also argues that the mass flight from South Africa of tens of thousands of foreign nationals of African origin can be equated to collective expulsion of foreign nationals, which is prohibited in international law, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.

CRAI calls on the Government of South Africa to:

• Assist in the recovery of the remains of all the victims killed in the violence and, in collaboration with the governments of their home countries, ensure that these victims and their families are treated with all possible dignity;
• protect assets and properties left behind by the victims with a view to ensuring effective restitution or compensation for the violations and losses suffered by them;
• Take effective steps to protect all persons within its territory and convey a clear message of zero-tolerance for the persecution of foreigners in South Africa.

Background

In South Africa, foreigners of African origin are called "Amakwerekwere", meaning the "Kwere kwere people" or people who speak unintelligible language.

These most recent attacks on African foreigners in South Africa reportedly started in the poor neighborhoods of Alexandria, near Johannesburg around 11 May 2008 and quickly spread to other settlements extending as far as Cape Town and Durban. On 29 May, the South African government officially confirmed that the attacks had resulted in the killing of at least 62 foreigners have been killed. In addition, over 600 injured and tens of thousands more have been forcibly displaced or forced to flee South Africa in fear for their lives. The value of property destroyed has been estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of Rands.

While these most recent attacks have received both global and local media attention, they are not the first or only such attacks against foreigners in South Africa. In 2006, in Cape Town, over a period of three months, 29 of the city's population of 4,000 Somalis were killed in targeted attacks then forcefully condemned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in South Africa. In March 2008, at least four foreigners were reportedly killed in townships around the capital city of Pretoria and several hundred others rendered homeless.