“Torn Apart: Thirteen refugees tell their stories” relaunched

First published in 2003, Torn Apart: Thirteen refugees tell their stories is a collection of accounts by refugees from five different war-torn African countries.

In light of the recent resurgence of xenophobic sentiment in Alexandra township in Johannesburg over the weekend, this moving compilation of stories telling of the suffering endured by refugees is particularly relevant. Xenophobic resentment is an ongoing problem in this country, as demonstrated in Torn Apart, which tells the life stories of refugees who had moved here from Angola, Burundi, Chad, DRC and Rwanda.

This year, the storytellers were re-interviewed and these new testimonies form part of the newly relaunched edition. Part of the “Survival Stories” initiative by the Human Rights Media Centre, the book aims “to create awareness in local communities of the ongoing suffering endured by refugees”.

Papa Chris’s essay, “In transit”, describes his flee from Burundi to Zimbabwe, and then eventually to South Africa, where he escaped the war but found himself in a different kind of living hell. He and his wife lived in a Wendy house in someone else’s yard. “My landlord stopped us from using the toilet because he said we wasted water in flushing…we had to resort to using the toilet at Hanover Park taxi rank and at night we used plastic bags for toilets.”

They were also ordered not to speak their mother tongue, Kirundi, in the back yard, and a subsequent landlord told Chris’s wife to give their child urine to drink in order to save water.

Fani M, from Rwanda, speaks of the difficulty in finding a job or even opening a bank account in South Africa without a South African ID document. “‘No, it’s impossible. Without your GREEN (they emphasised green) ID, you cannot open an account.’...It would be easier for me to get a job if I had studied here. But we don’t have the money for studies and we can’t get loans because, again, we are required to present the green ID.”

Some tales are more chilling. In his account, “Feeling sorry for myself just makes it worse”, Collin Emanuel from Angola tells a horrendous story: “I will never forget the day I returned home sick from work. I got myself into bed and asked the people with whom I was sharing a house to buy some Panado and Medlemon from the shop. I gave them R5 for the medicine but they went and bought poison for me. When I took those tablets I immediately lost consciousness. That was when they threw paraffin on my body and burnt me.”

Some stories are uplifting - other refugees speak of the kindliness of their neighbours: “When I am in hospital or when things are bad, they feed us and look after my kids. They help me every time the situation is out of my control.”

Says the Human Rights Media Centre, “The hope is that awareness will lead to understanding and compassion, not only among individual South Africans, but also in institutions of learning, banks and workplaces, and at the level of government policy-making and implementation.”

For more information or to order your copy of Torn Apart, visit the HRMC website, email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)or call 021 762 2092.

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