UN helps foreigners uprooted by xenophobic violence go home - UN News - August 27, 2008

The United Nations is assisting foreigners displaced by xenophobic violence which swept South Africa earlier this year to return to their home countries.

The violence - which also targeted asylum-seekers from such places as Zimbabwe, Somalia and Ethiopia, as well as ethnic minorities - claimed dozens of lives and left tens of thousands more homeless.

Officials in Gauteng province had planned to shut six temporary camps housing 6,000 displaced people this month, but those plans have been put on hold by the country's Constitutional Court.

"Between the uncertainty surrounding the closure of the temporary shelters and the inability or reluctance of refugees to reintegrate into local communities, the preferred solution for a growing number of them is to return to their countries of origin," said Pamela Msizi, a UNHCR protection assistant. Read More.