OM and the Zimbabwean Diaspora in the Western Cape
Diasporisation has been a major consequence of the last five years for Zimbabweans. We
have therefore included in this report, Zimbabweans now living in De Doorns in the Western
Cape. We featured this group in our report of March 2010, which focused on the conditions of
the diaspora in South Africa.8 Approximately 2,500 Zimbabweans were displaced in De
Doorns during the grape picking season in November 2009, as a result of xenophobic attacks,
and many ended up living in UNHCR tents for the displaced. The majority of those living in this
displaced persons camp in De Doorns, were also displaced by OM in Zimbabwe five years ago,
which made them a pertinent group for this report.9
The Cape Town based organisation PASSOP 10 conducted interviews here for SPT, when the
picking season was tailing off in April. Around 1,100 people then remained in the tented
camp: 118 interviews were conducted, on a voluntary basis, among those who identified
themselves as having been affected by OM in 2005. SPT visited De Doorns on 30 May 2010
and conducted key informant interviews, when the picking season was effectively over. There
were 420 Zimbabweans still living in IDP tents in increasingly icy weather ‐ waiting, with no
clear plans, for the future to unfold. By July 2010, in the wake of the FIFA World Cup,
Zimbabweans across South Africa were living in fear of xenophobic attacks. Many in De
Doorns were on the move once more, fleeing ahead of threats.
B.
1.
Main findings 2010
Urban housing
Diasporisation, ruralisation and death have temporarily reduced congestion for some
suburbs at least in Bulawayo, although this may not be as true for other urban areas, in
particular Harare.11 We note that 269 people lived on 27 urban stands affected by OM
in 2005. By 2010, this figure had been reduced by 48%, with only 141 living there. Of
those we can trace, most moved to a rural area, while the balance moved to the
diaspora or died.
Only 20% of individuals who were known to be on these stands in 2005/6 are
still there in 2010. This points to the importance of an entirely new voter registration
exercise and the need for a national census to establish where people now are. People
have moved multiple times over the last five years as they have desperately sought
ways of surviving, and families are divided between urban, rural and diaspora settings.
This decongestion is an indicator of severe urban poverty, precipitated by OM and
compounded by the collapse of 2007‐9: particularly since 2008, some families have
been driven out of the urban areas, as they fail to cover the very high cost of urban
living, including payment of rents, rates, electricity and schooling levies.
8 SPT (2010): Desperate lives, twilight worlds: how a million Zimbabweans live in South Africa without sanction or
sanctuary; Johannesburg.
9 Ibid: initial interviews in February for this earlier report, indicated that 52% of De Doorns respondents had a
direct history of displacement during OM.
10 People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppression and Poverty.
11 See Case Study One. Capital cities are always the most prone to rural‐urban migration, which is why Harare
may not have experienced this same phenomenon. Also, in 2008, many families fled rural areas for Harare during
the political violence. Matabeleland was not subject to this same phenomenon of IDPs in 2008.
9