Urban refugees tell their tale

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The week-old baby she holds is the price 17-year-old Tsitsi Makwiyana paid for fleeing Zimbabwe in search of a better life. The South African truck drivers who helped her flee also raped her and left her pregnant, says the asylum-seeker in Makhado, South Africa. “Now I must think about the baby.” Zalmaï

Too good for them? Following allegations that criminals were hiding among asylum-seekers at this abandoned warehouse in Pretoria – with no electricity, sewage system or running water – some 100 Zimbabwean asylum-seekers were evicted with no offer of alternative accommodation. Zalmaï

In the ruins of their once profitable supermarket in South Africa’s Western Cape province, Ethiopian refugee brothers Wandefraw and Chernet Legesse think about all that they lost during the xenophobic violence that swept the country in May 2008. UNHCR has since supported efforts to combat xenophobia and reconcile locals with foreign shopkeepers, including refugees and economic migrants. Zalmaï

Unemployed and sick, Elodi Kajuru Cizungu found refuge in Johannesburg with a compatriot after she fled her native Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2008. But like her distraught 10-year-old daughter, one of her four children, she worries about becoming homeless and hungry in exile. Zalmaï

A Zimbabwean asylum-seeker with all of his belongings in Makhado, Limpopo province. Asylum-seekers spend the day trying to earn enough money to survive. They often have to sleep out in the open. Zalmaï

Zimbabwean asylum-seekers living in a park in Makhado, near the border with their homeland, eat what is likely their only meal of the day in a soup kitchen run by Helping Hands South Africa. The food is donated by local shops and prepared and distributed by volunteers. Zalmaï

“I liked the country and I wanted to stay, but the country doesn’t want me,” says Joshua Bokombe, a Democratic Republic of the Congo refugee whose electrician’s shop was destroyed in the xenophobic violence. What hurts most is that he can no longer afford to send his children to school. Zalmaï

The first time Henry had ever been out of his home region was when he was displaced by fighting at the age of 44 and found safety in Soacha, on the southern edge of Bogota. His older brother, already displaced, helped Henry find a job recycling garbage. Zalmaï

Yenis’s suffering did not end after she fled the massacre in her home town of El Salado nine years ago. A year after the killings, one of her brothers, who had also escaped and was working in another town, was killed. Apparently, a friend of one of the paramilitaries started to work at the same place and and discovered that her brother had been there. Zalmaï

Children play in front of Eliécer Baron’s home in Cartagena. The community leader organised neighbours to build a school for displaced children and they are now looking for computers to equip it Zalmaï

Jair, 13, and his uncle, Gerardo, stand in front of their zinc shack, which sits close to the edge of a cliff. Some nights the three beds in the one-room shack hold as many as six people. Zalmaï

In search of even a meagre sale, Argemiro walks the streets of Cartagena for hours every day, selling his hand-made brooms and mops. Many forcibly displaced Colombians find it easier to feed their families in the countryside than in the city. Zalmaï

In Soacha, on the outskirts of Bogota, Wilson Vega learns from his 13-year-old son, Jair, how to write a letter on a computer. For displaced people in Colombia’s cities, having at least basic computer skills may be decisive in finding a job. Zalmaï

“I have no future in my country, no future for my family. I had no choice but to escape,” says this ethnic Chin man whose son draws only pictures of machine guns because it is the one thing he remembers of his home country. Many refugee children experience trauma and are mentally affected by their past experiences. Zalmaï

“I really want to die; I always feel that I am already dead,” says this 18-year-old Afghan refugee in Selangor, Malaysia, depressed that his mother must provide for his family and that he cannot finish his education. “I want to ask you, do you think I’m alive?” Zalmaï

“I rely on my daughters, who are seven and five years old, to help prepare my food, to bring me my medication,” says this HIV-positive refugee man. “I should be the one taking care of them.” Zalmaï

“We’re stranded in this house, nowhere to go. So many small children, always crying,” frets this Somali father as his son peers outside. “They want to go outside and play but it’s not safe outside. Many strange men. It’s better that they play inside.” Zalmaï

Never mind that the community-run school is simply a bare room, it’s still a dream factory for refugee children from Myanmar eager for an education. “I want to be a teacher,” says this young ethnic Chin girl. I want to teach other children to read and write. I like school.” Zalmaï

Picking vegetables in Malaysia’s highlands brought these young ethnic Chin refugees just US$5 a day. Now jobless and frustrated in Kuala Lumpur, one still dreams: “I want to go to school again and I want to meet my family again. That is my future plan.” Zalmaï

“We cannot live separately, no one can live by themselves. When we live together, we share our money, we share our food, we help take care of each other." In this flat, 50 refugees form a ‘village’ where communal cooking and cleaning are done and the members support and assist each other. Those who are able to earn an income help support those who can’t. Zalmaï

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Swiss photographer Zalmaï builds on his own experience as an Afghan refugee.

“A struggle for rights” depicts the urban refugees who often live unnoticed among their neighbours in three cities in three countries: Colombia, Malaysia, and South Africa. Today, more than half of the world’s refugees live in urban situations.