The forgotten - Bluewaters Refugee Camp

Caught in a legal limbo, victims of the mass xenophobic violence that recently ripped through South African townships struggle for asylum. Having recently discovered that South Africa is in no way safer than the war-torn countries from which they fled, they are uncertain whether to attempt to leave the country and return home.




Children, who have crossed most of Africa with their families to escape faction fighting in their home country of Somalia, give the youngest a bucket bath inside one of their UN issued tents.

A policeman calls out names for processing from a loud hailer inside his car.

Home Affairs, supported by SA Traffic Police come to tell refugees that their application for asylum has been rejected on the grounds that they have asked to be repatriated. They are given thirty days to leave the country.

Listening to the 24 hour BBC report on Somalia.

Normally hidden behind purdah, friends Sharifa dresses-up for a portrait.

Children stuck in the refugee camps are unable to attend school or get medical check ups as the camp's remote location is excluded by government bus routes.

Project Bluewaters

After the spate of xenophobic attacks in South Africa this year, refugees from all over Africa have been moved to safety camps outside of the city centres. They are housed in family sized tents supplied by the UN and provided with two meals a day by the City of Cape Town. A week ago the many camps around Cape Town were reduced to four, one of them Bluewaters outside of Michels Plain.

Most of the refugees say they are too scared to attempt reintegration into communities where they were staying prior to the xenophobic attacks. Most are lobbying to go back to their countries of origin, but the remote location of Bluewaters and the economic losses suffered by most whilst fleeing their homes in April means that the majority of Bluewaters refugees are unable to afford transport into the CBD to look for work, let alone transport home. The city of Cape Town has proposed a repatriation program due to be implemented next month.

All of the refugees photographed here were originally from Somalia. The portraits were taken as part of a project to provide the refugees with a visual record of their surviving relatives. Many have lost family members due to war or ethnic persecution in their countries of origin, their often gruelling and illegal journey down through africa, and again in the recent attacks on foreigners in South African townships.