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Charles Mbadu-Soki, 44, left Congo’s South-Kivu province in 2002 after Mai Mai militia tried to recruit him. A qualified electrician, he struggles to find work in South Africa. “Bosses don’t like this paper [a refugee permit]; when they see it, they say you can’t work here,” he says.
“Our permits, status, and documents say we can work and study. We find those things are only written on paper as it’s not so easy for the country to accept it.”
Mbadu-Soki was attacked in 2010 in Cape Town’s Samora Machel informal settlement. “They stabbed me because they say they don’t like foreigners. They say: ‘We are going to clean all the foreigners from South Africa’.”
(Guy Oliver/TNH) - Themes Migration
- Regions Africa Southern Africa