Cape Town - Two 750g Ricoffy tins sit on a small fire at the centre of an open field which is home to an unknown number of vagrants. While some lie inside their knee-high make-shift homes, others huddle together around the fire as they wait for bread to be delivered.
The allegedly drugged-up group of people are mostly foreign nationals, and they rush off when they hear the sound of one of their own leaving the camp. The bread had arrived.
While the chicken soup continues to boil over the small fire in the Ricoffy tins, Junior Sylvester, dressed in grey pants, a white vest and denim shirt cautions the Weekend Argus team to leave the “dangerous place” as “anything can happen to you here, this place is not safe”.
At the age of 27, Sylvester has lost everything. The Sudanese national ended up in Cape Town after he had been shipped off in a container headed to America when he was just 9. He does not know how he was separated from the rest of the people in the shipping container but he recalls being picked up by a woman who tried to help him.
“That mama that tried to help me get registered in this country has died now and after she died no one else tried to help me. That is how I ended up on the streets,” he said.
Sylvester is one of the mostly Sudanese and Malawians vagrants living on the open field across the road from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) in the city’s CBD.
Sudanese national Junior Sylvester ended up in Cape Town after he had been shipped off in a container headed to America. Picture: Ayanda Ndamane African News Agency (ANA)
Fearful students have accused this group of robbing them of their possessions on their way to and from the institution.
“We have to walk through here and they mug us all the time. We have tried to report the matter but to no avail. Maybe action will be taken when these people rape or kill us,’’ said a second-year management student from Khayelitsha.
Sylvester confessed to the team that he and his friends often rob people of their possessions so they could make some money, but denied using water from the neighbouring university.
Meanwhile, fellow vagrant, Samkelo Yeki, 27, told Weekend Argus there were only three South Africans living on the land which is “run by the foreigners”.
“We just don’t care about them, we live here because we have nowhere else to go. I left home because I was naughty and joined a gang. When I wanted to leave the gang, I could not, so I ran away, and that is how I came to live here,” he said.
Meanwhile, Alderman JP Smith, mayoral committee member for Safety and Security and Social Services, confirmed that the city was aware of the group but could not confirm how long they had occupied the land. Smith also added that a survey of street people would be conducted in November and this site would be included.
CPUT spokesperson Lauren Kansley confirmed that while this may be a problem, it was hard for the institution to act against the vagrants as they are not on the institution’s property.
“Vagrants in the D6 area remain a constant concern. But since they are not on campus property, it is difficult to police the issue,” she said.