Letter to the editor: Those who call the river bank home

Jill Holloway writes:

Every morning I walk my dogs. Today I took them down the Braamfontein Spruit and I chatted to the homeless guys who live on the river bank.

Sam, Spooks, Joseph Peter and Michael all come from Lesotho. They are young, hopeful, freezing and starving. There is little shelter around the waterfall and in the reeds, and the better spots under the bridge are occupied by South Africans. They have to find what shelter they can.

They left Lesotho because their fathers left Lesotho to work on the mines in South Africa, and they made good money doing it. Now the sons are following in their footsteps, but things are very different now. Nobody wants them, they are here illegally, and all they want is to go home.

None of them have papers, and all just walked across the borders and into South Africa. There are no patrols, there are no controls and they enter at will. The Craigpark Residents Association has a repatriation programme in place, and it pays to assist these desperate people to return to their homes.

But that is one area. There are hundreds of open spaces where homeless ex-pats are sheltering desperate to go home.

But where is the city council’s commitment to help solve the problems of youngsters who made a mistake? Why are they simply arresting them, driving them out of town and leaving them to freeze in the bush? Surely the country’s most prosperous municipalty can do better than this?

There should be a repatriation fund. There should be posters offering repatriation in the areas where the homeless seek shelter. There should be homeward-bound buses offering free repatriation. These guys don’t want to be here, and South African businesses can’t help them. Send the poor guys home.