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Malawians head back home

Hundreds of mostly young Malawians headed home yesterday in two dozen buses following weeks of xenophobic violence in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

A Sowetan team is accompanying the group on their journey back home.

According to humanitarian organisation Gift of the Givers, 22 of the 24 buses took more than 1500 displaced Malawians from Durban and Pietermaritzburg while another two buses travelled from Mayfair, Johannesburg, where some were temporarily housed.

Malawians living in the Makause informal settlement in Primrose, near Germiston on the East Rand, were threatened and many fled to a shelter offered by Gift of the Givers.

The departures are part of the repatriation programme co-ordinated by Gift of the Givers, the Department of Home Affairs and the Malawi government.

Delivery firm employee Davison Deresoni told Sowetan yesterday that xenophobic threats in Makause were too bad and that he had no choice but to leave.

In one of the buses with about 50 other young men and one woman, Deresoni said he would not be returning to South Africa for at least another year.

Married with an 18-month-old son, the 25-year-old packed his bed, stove and pots and left Makause fearing for his life. "The xenophobia was just too bad," said Deresoni, who is from Blantyre.

Some of Deresoni's household items were packed in the trailer of the bus he was travelling in. But he was among the fortunate few. Some of his compatriots queueing for food parcels at the assembly point in Midrand were barefoot, an indication of the haste in which they left their places of residence when mobs full of xenophobic hatred pounced.

Many young Malawians who live in Johannesburg work as gardeners, tailors, mechanics and domestics.

Gift of the Givers gave each travelling Malawian a food hamper and a blanket for the journey, which is more than 24 hours by bus. Many fled their areas of residence with only the clothes on their backs.

Some of the Malawians travelling in one of the two buses from Johannesburg refused to accept that their departure marked the end of their lives in South Africa.

One man who said he was from the northern parts of Malawi said he was returning home because his mother had pleaded with him to avoid staying due to the latest outbreak of xenophobic violence in South Africa.

The man said he was unlikely to get a job in Malawi.

sidimbal@sowetan.co.za