Refugee Stories - Patrice from the Eastern Congo

Although continuously overlooked by the international media, the situation in the Eastern Congo is among the worst in the world. The Second Congo War, beginning in 1998, devastated the country, involved seven foreign armies, and lead to the death of 5.4 million people, making it the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II. Although peace accords were signed in 2003, fighting continues to this day, as warring rebel groups continue to rape, torture and murder unabated. It is estimated that around six million people have fled the region in the conflict broke out thirteen years ago. 

Over the past year I’ve met quite a few refugees from the Eastern Congo through my work at PASSOP. A few weeks ago I wrote down Patrice’s life story in order to help him apply for asylum in South Africa. His story is full of violence, pain and loss. It’s hard to believe that it’s all true. But it is. Perhaps what is even harder to believe, is that there are millions of others from the region who have a similar story. I’m just telling one of them. 

Patrice was born in South Kivu Province in the Eastern Congo in 1980. He grew up amongst poverty and violence. Mobutu, Congo’s (US-backed) dictator from 1971-1997, used international aid money and the country’s vast minerals to enrich himself while letting the country deteriorate into a kleptocracy. He is said to have embezzled over $4billion and kept it in Swiss bank accounts. He ordered that every bank note and public building had his picture on it. He also renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga – which translates as ‘the all powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, shall go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake’. (It seems I have finally found someone who has a bigger ego than my brother Yanis.)

Patrice’s, and the country’s, fortunes did not improve when Mobutu was disposed of in 1997. The fragility of the new government triggered the outbreak of the Second Congolese War in 1998. Patrice’s father was brutally murdered by Hutu rebels as the violence erupted.

A week before his 18^th birthday, and shortly after his father’s murder, rebel fighters attacked his home village. Patrice was severely beaten and forced to watch as his mother and 15-year-old sister being raped.

The violence continued until Patrice was finally forced to flee his home in 2001 to seek refuge in neighbouring Zambia. For the next six years he lived in different refugee camps in Zambia along with tens of thousands of fellow Congolese refugees.

Zambia did not offer Patrice a reprieve from the violence. In the massive refugee camps he was targeted for having a Rwandan name and accused of being a government spy. Patrice was threatened, robbed and beaten several times. On one occasion in 2007 he was beaten so viciously, his attackers broke his jaw, nose and ribs, puncturing a lung, and was left lying unconscious. He spent two weeks in hospital recovering. Although he reported the threats and the attacks to international NGOs, his warnings fell on deaf ears. The international NGOs and the UNHCR had time and again shown that they were unable to ensure his safety. He made up his mind that he would return home to South Kivu in Congo.

His hope of returning to find his family healthy was shattered when he got home and found out that his mother had fled the area, his older brother had been murdered, his younger sister had been raped by soldiers, and his family’s land was gone.

Aggression from his community forced Patrice to flee his home once again. He hid in a nearby city and slept under trees and in the local market to survive.

In 2010, Patrice found a new job at a mine in North Kivu Province. It wasn’t long before violence caught up to him there. After just a few months on the job, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu rebel group, attacked the mine, killing 80 people and forcing Patrice and nine others to carry stolen supplies into the bush. Deep in the bush, Patrice was raped, along with all the others. The rebels mutilated the women’s genitals and breasts. Patrice and the other survivors were then left in the bush for dead. They spent a week surviving on fruit, and eventually forged through the forest to return to the mine. 


Concerned by the lack of response from the Congolese army officials in the community, Patrice spoke out  and suggested solutions to the local commanding army officer. For these criticisms of the army and the government, Patrice was targeted by the army. Patrice was once again forced to leave his country and return to Zambia.

Patrice at our office

However, after being refused asylum in Zambia, Patrice was deported back to the Congo and subsequently arrested by state security on June 20th. Luckily, he managed to escape jail after five days and decided to flee to South Africa in order to save his life. En route, he made his way through the Congo, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique. In Mozambique Patrice was arrested for being an illegal immigrant, robbed of his money and stripped of his clothing. He was left for two days in a jail cell covered in feces before being eventually abandoned on the side of the road.

A month ago, Patrice finally made it to South Africa. After helping him apply for asylum here last week, he is now starting the long waiting process for the result of his application. But he’s safe - for the first time in a long time. 


After he finished telling me his story I told him how moved I felt, and asked him how he is doing in South Africa now. He said: "It is sometimes hard but I believe I am now out of that sphere. Since I arrived in SA my mind is quite okay. I haven't found any job, I am always just promised but never fulfilled. But I will be okay."

No better place - my friends and I surfing in Cape Town

Two months ago I got a GoPro waterproof camera from my parents and my friend Robin. Since then we've tried to record some of our adventures here in Cape Town. I am working on putting it all together in a short movie - the clip below is a trailer for that movie. It's my first time editing - hope you enjoy it!

Wake up

I came across this poem today. It spoke to me in its simplicity and honesty.  

The funny thing about fairy tales is that we forget about them so fast

We grow up, we buy things, we build up fences

We sell our innocence and forget our dreams

We forget who we are in order to be something we’re not

And we’ll keep believing in these so-called truths, until we forget how to live

Or until we open our eyes, and wake up.

Fire in Masiphumelele

The fire swept through Masiphumelele township in the middle of the night. It started just after midnight and grew to such a force that firemen could not contain it until six hours later. Not one of the 40,000 people in township slept throughout the night. 

When the sun rose, 1500 shacks had been burnt to the ground – almost 5000 people displaced.  

This is how my friend Sipho retold the experience to me the next morning:

‘We could smell the smoke in the air before we heard the shouting outside. I opened the door and went outside looking in the direction of the fire. The air was black with thick, heavy smoke.  It was hard to breathe, hard to see. I could hear the fire rumbling in the distance, like a monster growling for food. I could hear the muffled shouting that the stiff wind carried to us from the direction where the smoke was coming from.

Cleaning up - the metal on the left will all be used again

‘All you can do is pack as many of your things as you have time for and get out of your house. I knew I still had some time before the fire would reach me and I thought of my sister, whose shack was where the smoke was coming from. I ran towards the fire.

‘When I got there, it was like a movie...The fire was so big, it looked like it was moving in slow motion. It was ten metres high and 100 metres wide. People were running everywhere, carrying as much as they could and dragging their children behind them. I couldn’t get to my sister’s shack, the fire had already swallowed it. 

‘I went looking for her, and found her at a friend’s house. She was fine, but crying. She had only had time to grab her ID documents and a handful of small valuables before the fire forced her to flee. She knew she had lost her house and all her belongings.’

I went to Masiphumelele that morning, after I woke up and saw the lights of the emergency vehicles in the distance from my bedroom window.

When I got there, the heavy smell of burnt waste lingered in the air. It was a grey day and rain was quietly falling, turning the ash into a black sludge.

If only the rain had come a few hours earlier.

The destruction I saw was immense. Hundreds of makeshift shacks made from wood and corrugated iron were burnt to the ground. Where once stood a maze of hundreds of haphazardly built homes was now reduced to nothing. What was left were charred cars, burnt furniture and melted plastic toys.

I heard stories of people who just had time to grab their children and run before the fire wiped out their homes. It is a miracle that only a handful of people died.

The black ashes had not yet cooled, smoke was still rising from everywhere, and yet people all around me were starting to clean-up, sort through the burnt rubble and to rebuild their homes with whatever useable materials they could find. Everyone was helping each other.

What else, but to rebuild, could they do?

What is left of the PASSOP Help Desk Office

Whereas most other NGOs had their offices in the more developed part of the township, safely away from the maze of shacks that so easily light up in flames, our humble help desk office was in the heart of the township. It too got burnt.

My colleagues and I helped our neighbours rebuild and they helped us clean up. We felt proud to be one with, and be part of the community in such a sombre way. We heard that some of our volunteers and neighbours had poured water on our little office for hours in the middle of the night to try to stop it from burning down. They saved most of our furniture and supplies.

We repaid their loyalty to us by spending several days organising clothing and food donations and raising money to contribute towards all they had lost.

But in many cases, money or food or clothes, don’t provide the help where it is needed. One of our Zimbabwean volunteers had had an appointment to get married three days later – he lost his birth certificate and passport in the fire and so will now have to wait for many months, if not over a year, before the inefficient Zimbabwean authorities issue him with replacement documents.

It has been five days since the fire, almost all the shacks are now standing again. It looks like the same maze of wood and scrap metal shacks, leaning slightly to one or the other side, only now most of them are empty inside. No beds, no chairs, no stove, no pots and pans. 

All of this - and all the little prized possessions - like a CD player or a fridge - takes people months and months of saving and borrowing to be able to buy. Now they have to start over.

But despite that, there was no feeling of resignation anywhere. The attitude was one of acceptance; as one local volunteer summarised: ‘It happened before, it happened now, and it will happen again. It’s part of life in a township.’

People have been hardened in the face of poverty, HIV/AIDS, unemployment, exploitation and other hazards, like fires.

How much tougher they are than us.

The blonde girl and the train: South Africa's great divide

“Hey stranger, what are you up to? ;)” was the text message I received the other day. It was a not-so-subtle attempt at flirtation from a blonde South African girl I had met a few days before in a bar but had only exchanged a few words (and phone numbers) with. I was pleasantly surprised that she had taken it upon herself to contact me. “I’m on the train, on the way back home from work. How was your day?” was my reply. 

Then, with just seven words, she managed to turn my modest curiosity in her into distinct disinterest. “You do train..not scared? Brave boy!!”

Let me explain.

"Huh, what did you say to me?"

First of all, (to any ladies reading this) never call a man you hardly know a ‘brave boy’. It sounds like something a grandmother would say to her 5-year old feeble grandson, whilst patting him on the head for resisting the urge to cry at the sight of a spider. I’m not five, I was never a feeble child, and you’re not my grandmother - don’t call me a ‘brave boy’.  It’s a blow to my ego is an attack on my persona of being a tough guy. Men want to be made to feel like men – not like little boys being patted on the head..

Now that that’s covered, let me explain what the real problem with this girl’s text message was. It was the assertion that, being white, I should not take the train. Indeed, I ought to be afraid of taking the train, because only the poor black and coloured people take the trains. This attitude has bothered me since the first week I moved to South Africa years ago...the majority of white South Africans live privileged lives that are completely disconnected from the realities facing the majority of South Africans around them. As a result, South Africa today remains a country with deep divisions, both physical and social.

Contrary to this girl’s, or indeed the majority of white South African’s belief, it’s not only drug-dealers and thugs who take the public transport (trains and minibuses); 90 % of South Africans do. That’s because they cannot afford cars. The only people who can are the same paranoid whites,  many of whom have never once set foot in one of these minibuses (which they refer to as “chocolate boxes”).

Since the majority of South Africans take public transport every day, there I was, at 5 in the afternoon, sitting on the train next to a group of giggling 8-year old school girls, a 90-year old grandfather with a walking stick and a big African mama who asked me to help carry her shopping bags...

Yes, I was terrified.

It’s not only this girl who lives in this frame of mind; I come across it all the time. And it’s only partially the girl’s fault. Her parents and friends have told her that it is dangerous. The awfully sensationalist media fuels these fears. The result is a complete state of paranoia and distrust amongst white South Africans. (I need not mention that there are of course many exceptions, but I write here about the majority.)

There’s no denying that South Africa has incredibly high crime statistics. But I wasn’t riding the train through a township at midnight. And more importantly, the fact is that 95% of crime and violence occurs in townships, far away from the white suburbs, and is between poor blacks and coloureds.

It is a widely-held view in sociology that the level of violence and crime in a country is a reflection both of its level of inequality and of the state of its society’s moral fabric. South Africa needs some serious healing and reconciliation in both instances... Otherwise the great divide that runs through this country will continue to cripple it.

Maybe I’ll start by organising a group train ride with my white South African friends one afternoon. “Come on guys”, I’ll say, “It will be an adventure!”

But I won’t invite that girl.  She called me a ‘brave boy’ after all.

PASSOP, Part II - El Commandante and what we do

PASSOP is a small organisation with almost no resources but it has a big name and an even bigger reputation.  It is different from all other NGOs I have come across – it is more idealistic,  more ‘grassroots’, more intense and more rewarding. All of that is because its founder and director: refugee rights activist Braam Hanekom.

Braam at a protest

Braam founded PASSOP in 2007 (when he was 24..), and it is only through his charisma, leadership and passion that PASSOP became so widely known in township communities and amongst political and media circles in South Africa. The media attention he has received with PASSOP in the last few years through the many protests and campaigns against human rights abuses and the mistreatment of foreigners in South Africa has made him widely known and respected, particularly amongst Zimbabweans. (He has been arrested four different times during protests.) There are between 150,000 and 300,000 Zimbabwean migrants living in the Western Cape Province – I have not once met one that did not know of Braam and PASSOP. 

Perhaps the best way to describe Braam is as a South African Che Guevara. He is a socialist through and through; a revolutionary with all his heart and mind. He was born and raised in Zimbabwe and he speaks Shona fluently. He dropped out of high school to campaign for the opposition in Zimbabwe when he was 17 and came to South Africa a few years later and started PASSOP. 

Braam being celebrated by displaced Zimbabweans

One usually rather hard-to-impress friend of mine who recently met Braam at my house simply said: ‘That guy is the real deal’. He is one of those special people that can truly captivate an audience with his words and inspire people with his rhetoric. Whenever he starts speaking in townships, crowds of people gather around to listen. A big reason why I have turned down other well-paying jobs over the past half a year and decided to stay at PASSOP is because I know I can learn a lot from Braam.

Yet, for all that Braam (aka ‘El commandante’) has in leadership and charisma, he lacks in the interest and savvy in organising funding. When I joined five months ago, PASSOP consisted of Braam, Tendai (the secretary) and two volunteers and was operating out of a small room in Braam’s mother’s house. The organisation was funded largely by Braam’s generous parents. Donors and other well-wishers would practically have to throw money at him for him to take it. Braam also rarely makes compromises; it’s often his way or none at all. His intense personality and frequent outbursts have led many over the years to shy away from working with him in the long-term.

Despite its small size and limited resources, PASSOP is undoubtedly one of the leading advocates for the rights of refugees and immigrants in South Africa. Not a week goes by when we are not featured in newspapers, radio or on TV. In the past, PASSOP has exposed corruption at Home Affairs offices, time and again highlighted human rights abuses, represented thousands of workers in cases of discrimination and exploitation and represented displaced foreigners after a wave of xenophobic violence swept across the country in 2008 and again in 2009. Braam achieved all of that with next to no financial resources. 

Braam's idea of 'crowd control' (bottom right, with Che Guevara shirt).

 A lot has changed in the last five months. We managed to get a number of proposals approved that substantially increased our funding. As a result, we were able to move into a spacious office and now there are  eight full-time paid staff members and 25 interns and volunteers! Helping to achieve this fast progress is definitely my proudest achievement to date, because I know the far-reaching positive impact that PASSOP is now able to have. 

Besides staying vocal against all kinds of human rights violations (i.e. by staging protests) and organising music, sports and other cultural 'reintegration events', we are now able to run a number of on-going projects simultaneously. We have just set up ‘anti-xenophobia help desks’ in various high risk townships around Cape Town where anti-foreigner sentiments are prevalent. The aim of this project is to help bridge the gap between locals and foreigners through the provision of paralegal advice, educational workshops, information campaigns and other services, such as CV-building. It is also a base from which we can monitor township communities for first signs of xenophobic tensions.

We also recently launched a project that assists poor immigrant families who have children with disabilities; are starting a project in a number of High Schools in which PASSOP volunteers go and present and debate issues surrounding stereotypes against foreigners, the social, political and economic realities in the home countries that foreigners flee from and what human rights are; and are in the process of launching a new mass information anti-xenophobia campaign on trains and other public transport.

What I enjoy most about working at PASSOP and what keeps me motivated, is that I can see the direct impact that our work is having on the lives of people who often can’t stand up for themselves. Every single day over a dozen people come into our office with all sorts of labour, documentation or other issues. For example, I often write threatening letters for people who are being severely mistreated and exploited by their employers – the satisfaction I get from hearing how oppressive bosses suddenly pay the overdue wages or change their abusive practices never gets old.

PASSOP, Part I - The Context: Zimbabwean Migration to South Africa

Zimbabwean man crossing into South Africa naked

It’s been over three months since I started working at the human rights and refugee advocacy non-profit organisation PASSOP (People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty) and it’s about time I write down some of my impressions. It’s been a fascinating and challenging experience so far and one from which I am continuously learning. This post is the first of three about PASSOP. This first one sets the context to the work that PASSOP does by outlining Zimbabwean migration to South Africa and the xenophobic tensions that are pervasive here. 

PASSOP’s constituency is primarily the many Zimbabweans currently living in South Africa (although we often work with Congolese, Somalis, Mozambicans etc. too). Many of them are undocumented, or in the country ‘illegally’.  This makes them one of the most marginalised groups in South Africa and makes them particularly vulnerable to exploitation and discrimination, which they are often subjected to in the form of being forced to accept lower wages or paying higher rent, for example.  Sometimes, however, they also become the victims of xenophobic abuse and violence.  PASSOP actively engages both Zimbabwean and South African communities in various townships to resolve labour disputes and documentation issues and to try to pre-empt xenophobia tensions.

At a PASSOP protest: speaking out against injustice

My colleagues at PASSOP are mostly from Zimbabwe.  Just like all the people PASSOP works for, they too have fled the disastrous economy and hostile political environment in their home country (more about my colleagues in Part III). Zimbabwe used to be known as the bread basket of Africa; President Robert Mugabe was once respected as one of the most progressive African independence leaders as high school enrollment rates increased from just 2%  to 70% in his first ten years in office from 1980 to 1990.  At the time Zimbabweans were the most educated, productive and independent populace in Southern Africa.  All of that is no more.

Sign at South African border post

A steady and painful decline that began in the mid-1990s has left Zimbabwe today as a crippled and weak shadow of its former self.  The decline was accelerated in 2000 when Mugabe’s party started forcefully redistributing commercial agricultural land owned by white farmers.  As more and more white farmers were forced to flee, most of the country’s farms became unproductive and the country’s agricultural production, which had made up over half of the country’s foreign income, plummeted. This precipitated the collapse of the economy. Inflation reached historically unprecedented levels to such an extent that a one billion Zimbabwean dollar bill was not enough to buy a roll of toilet paper. Only 10 % of the population was formally employed and the life expectancy dropped from 61 years in 1991 to only 34 years fifteen years later in 2006.  To add to the misery, the political situation turned violent in 2008, when after contested elections hundreds of opposition supporters were killed and thousands detained.

The result was that many ordinary Zimbabweans had no other chance but to emigrate.  Most fled to South Africa, where it is estimated that around 1.5 million (or 25% of Zimbabwe’s labour force) currently live and work to be able to earn a livelihood for their families at home.  A migration on such a scale is unprecedented in a country that is not at war. Having such large numbers of Zimbabweans living and working in South Africa aggravates many South Africans who blame them for taking their jobs. There is some truth to this, since unemployment in South Africa is at an impressive 25% and because Zimbabweans are not only usually better educated than South Africans, but also extremely hard-working, they often manage to find jobs more easily.

Angry mob of South Africans chasing foreigners out of township

The lack of employment, as well as the generally low quality of services available to poor South Africans, coupled with a long-standing and widespread belief amongst South Africans that South Africa is somehow  superior to other African countries, xenophobia often rears its ugly head. In 2008, xenophobic violence erupted in townships all across the country that left dozens dead and tens of thousands displaced. Despite leading to heavy national and international condemnation, xenophobic violence has since broken out a handful of times more, albeit on a smaller scale.

Burning down the shacks of foreigners

How can a people that only 16 years ago freed itself from the oppressive shackles of the appalling Apartheid system have turned so quickly into the oppressors? Where does the hatred towards their African brothers and sisters come from? Is it because the wounds of decades of Apartheid have not yet healed properly? Probably... but it is also largely because South Africans too often forget that their Zimbabwean, and Congolese, and Somali brothers and sisters are not in South Africa out of choice, but out of necessity. Most simply cannot find a means to feed their children unless they migrate south of the border. They love their home countries just as much as anyone, but in most cases, they have no choice but to leave. Failing to understand this, many bigoted South Africans are quick to blame their own woes on others and point the finger at the ‘foreigners’. This must end - there must be more empathy, more humility and more love. 

PASSOP works towards achieving this goal. Beyond fighting against xenophobia, we are also lobbying strongly against the South African government’s plan to begin deporting Zimbabweans again later this year. Although the record-breaking inflation rates have normalised since the Zimbabwean currency was scrapped last year and there is some sense of calm following a power-sharing agreement between the two main political parties, ZANU-PF and MDC, unemployment is still at over 80% and many opposition supporters still fear for their lives. With elections looming in a few months, the intimidation tactics have already begun as Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF party are looking more defiant than ever. This will surely bring a swift end to the current calm.  Deporting Zimbabweans back to a place where they face starvation, fear and violence is foolhardy and irresponsible, at best.