Johannesburg - Dolly Makwakwa is only nine years old but has already being scarred by the xenophobic hate that erupted last month and left many foreigners displaced.
On Monday, as the continent celebrates Africa Day, Dolly tells her story in a video taken by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) at a refugee camp in Chatsworth, KwaZulu-Natal. MSF are are making a series of anti-xenophobia video testimonies from refugees, asylum seekers and migrants titled Voices from the Camps.
When attacks against foreigners flarred up, their neighbours told Dolly and her mother to leave.
“The neighbours were saying ‘you must go because they will come in your house and hit you and your children’,” says Dolly, who was born in South Africa to a Mozambican mother.
They were chased away and in the commotion she heard some shout “shaya” which means “hit” in Zulu followed by gunshots. Some people were injured and crying.
“I was scared and in the morning we packed our things and came here (to the camp) because my mother was very scared. I miss my school, my teachers and my friends. I want to go home, I want to go back to school. I am scared when I am staying here,” she says.
At the time of the recording of the video Dolly had already missed seven weeks of school.
The Star