Foreign nationals at Bellville, Wingfield tent sites have refused all offers of help - Hill-Lewis
The City of Cape Town, the public works and home affairs departments are seeking an eviction order to remove those still living at Paint City in Bellville and the Wingfield site, opposite the Maitland Cemetery.
FILE: One part of a group of about 630 people, refugees originally from Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Bangladesh, and other countries who are sleeping in a large tent in Bellville, Cape Town, on 22 September 2020. Picture: RODGER BOSCH/AFP
CAPE TOWN - Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said that the foreign nationals remaining at two tent sites in the metro had refused all offers of help.
The City of Cape Town, the public works and home affairs departments are seeking an eviction order to remove those still living at Paint City in Bellville and the Wingfield site, opposite the Maitland Cemetery.
Around 360 foreign nationals are still occupying the two sites.
They were moved to the sites five years ago after occupying a church in Green Market Square.
Speaking to John Maytham on the Afternoon Drive Show, Hill-Lewis said that the joint application was about restoring dignity to those living under unsustainable conditions.
"We haven't applied for urgency, and if it is unopposed, which I sincerely hope it is, then it shouldn't be too long. I think it would be a matter of a few months and we’d get on the unopposed role. If it’s opposed, obviously a very different story."
He said that hundreds had accepted offers to move from the temporary sites over the past few years.
"So, I really think the very best thing for these people now is to either go back to their country of origin or the court to instruct them to go on their way and to integrate into South Africa."