Word: johannesburg
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Already about 10,000 people have opted to return home to Mozambique, an official from that government - which has laid on buses for would-be returnees - told Reuters. At the police station in Primrose east of Johannesburg, where about 5,000 people are camping in tents in an adjacent field, cheers erupted Wednesday as five buses arrived to take people back to Mozambique. On the opposite side of the field, 26-year old Mozambican Domingos Ubsse was sitting inside a minibus taxi, waiting to leave for Maputo. After 20 armed men barged into the room he shares with four others...
...Even Zimbabweans, who face not only poverty but also hunger and persecution in a country in economic and political free-fall, are choosing to return home rather than face more anti-immigrant violence in South Africa. In central Johannesburg on Thursday, a bus depot buzzed with scores of Zimbabweans desperate to get on buses bound for home. While these buses typically depart for Zimbabwe only half full, the past few days have seen them filled beyond capacity, says Victor Ramaphosa, an inspector with the Revival Bus Company...
...Running his small store in Tembisa, east of Johannesburg, had enabled Murimbechi to support three younger siblings back in Zimbabwe, he says. "Maybe I will come back here," he adds desolately. "Or maybe Morgan Tsvangirai will win the election, and maybe the economic situation will improve." About a dozen other Zimbabweans at the bus depot shared similar stories with TIME, while others seeking shelter in the Central Methodist Church in downtown Johannesburg - where around 3,000 mainly Zimbabweans are have found a makeshift refuge - said that they would return home if they could afford...
...Meanwhile, in the squatter camp of Ramaphosa east of Johannesburg, scavengers sifted through the charred wreckage where foreigners' shacks once stood, carting away sheets of twisted and blackened metal. One neighbor stepped out of his shack to claim that the Mozambicans chased out two days ago had provoked the attacks by planning revenge attacks on South Africans after hearing of the violence in Alexandra. "They want to rule here in South Africa," said the man, who declined to give his name...
More than 40 people were killed and thousands left homeless as a wave of anti-immigrant violence swept through the shantytowns around Johannesburg. President Thabo Mbeki was eventually compelled to send troops to quell vengeful mobs that rampaged against migrants from neighboring nations, whom they blame for everything from a rash of robberies to taking away jobs in a nation racked by high unemployment. Despite astoundingly high rates of violent crime in South Africa (mob violence aside, some 52 people are murdered every 24 hours), many Zimbabweans in particular have poured into the country to escape their own nation...