Ayesha Ramadhani: ‘Make me safe,’ refugee begs UN

She thought a life of living like a fugitive had come to an end when she arrived in South Africa, but a fearful Burundian/Congolese woman, Ayesha Ramadhani, is ready to take her children and flee the country they have called home for the past 20 years.

Ramadhani, 42, was one of the hundreds of homeless refugees camping for weeks outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) offices in the affluent suburb of Brooklyn, Pretoria.

She and her fellow campers’ plea was for the UN to assist them to find security and solace anywhere in the world, since South Africa – with its constant threats of violence toward foreigners – has become unsafe.

Sitting under a gazebo with three other Muslim women on the busy Waterkloof Street leading to the UN office, she often choked in emotion as she relived how more than half her life had been spent on the run from persecution.

The Burundi civil war forced Ramadhani, then 17, to flee her home country for the Democratic Republic of Congo. She naively thought she would be able to settle and start a family, and even considered herself a native of her new country.

Ayesha Ramadhani. Picture: Jacques Nelles

“I got married in the Congo and became Congolese. But then there was unrest and my husband and children had to flee.

“For about three years we were passing through Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique until we arrived in South Africa in 1999.”

Tragedy struck while they were in Tanzania.

Ramadhani tearfully recounted how her toddler disappeared, while they were fleeing from rebels who were hunting them.

“My husband was a soldier and some rebels from Congo had found out where we were staying and were coming after us. We had to quickly escape but, in the process, we lost our three-year-old son.”

Ramadhani is further burdened by poor health. Adequate healthcare for a growing abdominal cyst has been beyond her reach for the past 11 years because no state hospital in South Africa has been willing to remove the painful growth.

Making a living by selling snacks and sweets at a taxi rank in Durban in 2008, a pregnant Ramadhani thought she was expecting twins.

“But it was actually a big cyst behind the baby. The doctor at King Edward Hospital said I needed to have a c-section so the baby and the cyst could be removed.”

Her baby was safely born but surgeons stitched her up without taking out the cyst.

“Because I had been opened up, the cyst was contaminated and it grew. I ended up in a coma for two months. I was able to hear what was happening around me, but I could not talk. I could hear doctors and nurses arguing about me because I am a foreigner.”

Her newborn was taken care of by the hospital’s social workers. Once she regained consciousness, her journey to recovery only worsened.

“A few months later I went back. I was sent to theatre, opened up and I thought the cyst was removed. But after a while I started feeling pain again. I decided to go to a private doctor who revealed that the cyst was still there. He said he could remove it but at a cost of R30,000. I could not afford that.”

Ramadhani found herself on the operating table five times at King Edward VIII Hospital but each surgery was bizarrely futile – the cyst was never removed.

“Each time, I am chastised by the nurses who tell me that I should not expect South Africa’s government to take care of my health.

“I was advised by an Indian lady who works at the hospital to go back to my home country as I won’t end up getting help and I will be killed.”

There was a glimmer of joy in her life in 2017 when she received news that her son had been found and was being raised by another family.

This news was bittersweet for an emotional Ramadhani, who wishes to one day “go back to Tanzania to see him.”

The recent xenophobia across South Africa has seen hundreds like Ramadhani abandon all hope.

She left her family in Durban to join her fellow refugees in Pretoria on October 9. They are staging a sit-in in the hope the UNHCR will send them to a country more welcoming to refugees.

They are currently facing a court challenge from local homeowners, who would like to see them removed.

Among her fellow campers are several similar stories, including some who lost friends and family in SA.

Ramadhani said she is desperate for the UN’s help.

“I hate South Africa so much. When I came here, I was happy … but now, things have changed. They don’t want us here.”

Whatever happens, though, it would appear that her 25 years of wandering are not yet over.

– rorisangk@citizen.co.za

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