The fate of thousands of Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa's Gauteng province is yet to be decided, as Friday's deadline for refugee camps to be dismantled edges ever closer.

 
The camps were set up by the South African government earlier this year following a spate of violent attacks against foreigners across the country, which left more than 60 people dead and thousands homeless. The Gauteng local government has since announced the camps in the province would be dismantled on Friday and the estimated 4 000 refugees of xenophobic violence would be reintegrated back into the communities they were forced to flee.
 
The decision to take down the camps has left the refugees in a desperate situation - as the majority, mainly from Zimbabwe, cannot return to their own countries. There are now fears that there will be another upsurge of violence as groups of locals have already started intimidating unwanted foreigners.
 
On Wednesday, lawyers from The Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa and the Wits Law Clinic, filed an urgent application at the Constitutional Court to keep the temporary camps open. The move came after a Pretoria High Court dismissed the same application on Tuesday, saying the South African government was not violating the rights of the refugees. The judge added that the government was under no obligation to come up with a re-integration plan, and it had done enough to manage the disaster.
 
But on Thursday the Constitutional Court had not yet made a decision on the application and was in recess until the term begins again on Friday. But with the camps set to come down on Friday, the Court's ruling may prove too little, too late.

SW Radio Africa News, 14 August 2008