From the DRC’s hell to victimisation in SA

“I was not safe in the DRC. I was not safe in Joburg, now I am not safe in Durban. I don’t know what to do. I can only pray,” said Alex Musambia.

He said he was just 18 when rebels attacked his village in the rural east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He was at school when gunmen ran into the building. He watched as two of his friends were shot and killed, but was able to escape before the men turned their attention to him.

“I ran away, to my home in the village. But the rebels were already there. I got into the house and saw five of them raping my mother. I tried to stop them, but they hit me with the back of an AK47 and knocked me out,” said Musambia, now 27.

Four days after the attack, his mother died from her injuries and Musambia was left to fend for himself.

“I was lucky because, when she died, she left some money for me. People told me that I should go to South Africa, because maybe I could find peace in that country,” he said.

Musambia paid someone to drive him from the DRC through Zambia and Zimbabwe and into South Africa, where he was granted refugee status, he said.

That was in 2006. He settled in Johannesburg, where there was a growing Congolese community, and did piecemeal jobs, including working as a car guard and security guard, and then opened a salon. But tragedy was not far away.

In 2008, he fell victim to the xenophobic violence that broke out across Johannesburg and eventually claimed 62 lives.

“I was beaten up in Joburg. My salon was set on fire.”

He thought he would be safe in Durban where, until recently, violence against foreigners was less prevalent. He moved to Isipingo, an industrial area in the south of the city. When the attacks started on March 31, he was one of the first victims.

“A friend of mine told me a few days before that the Zulus were going to attack us. But I thought it was a joke. But then it happened. A gang came up the street. They were saying we should go . . . that the king said we should go.

“They chased me from my shop and stole everything. They hit me, so I ran straight to the police station,” he said.

Musambia, like many others at the Isipingo refugee camp, said he felt trapped.

“I can’t go back to the DRC, but I don’t think I can stay here. Maybe the United Nations Refugee Agency can get involved and take us to another country. But I don’t know.”