Dreaming of biryani and birthday cake as they live on the street and wait for the worst

“Say happy birthday to my baby, she’s one today,” Burundian native Siktu Abdul says with a wide grin on her face.

The birthday girl, Ajma, is fast asleep on her mom’s back, ignorant to the panic ahead of the June 30 deadline that the March and March movement is demanding for all undocumented foreigners to leave South Africa.

Nor is she aware that life has moved from a two-bedroom flat in Umbilo to the cold pavements outside the department of home affairs refugee reception centre in Che Guevara Road for the past four weeks.

Abdul is among about 400 people from the DRC, Burundi and Rwanda who live in the temporary, makeshift camp. Documented and undocumented refugees and asylum seekers have fled their homes following violence, evictions and intimidation in the run up to the anti-migrant sentiment.

Unlike thousands who sought refuge first in Sherwood Park when the intimidation and violence against documented and illegal migrants broke out earlier this month, who were then moved to the Durban Drive-In repatriation site, no one has come to assist the group outside the refugee centre.

Abdul flips through her asylum papers preciously kept in a plastic sleeve until she finds what she is looking for.

“Here see, born June 29 2025. She is one today,” says the mother of six children.

Abdul says her eldest child, a daughter who is 19, was born in Burundi after she was kidnapped by four young men who killed her parents. She did her best to raise her child until she fled to South Africa in 2012 for a “better life”.

Here she met her husband a few years later and they raised a family with her looking after the children and him doing contract work.

While her situation is dire, Abdul says she wants to make the most of her child’s special day.

“If I was living in the flat, I would have made biryani because that’s the dish we make when we have a celebration, and there would be new clothes and a cake.

“I will now try to buy some chips and a small cake so that all the children can sing for her and she can have a happy birthday, even though we are sitting here, waiting for the worst.”

I dream of my couch and my bed and my kitchen. It wasn’t much, but more than what we have here. We have been here for a long time. This is our home and we don’t have anywhere to go.

Abdul says they are in limbo with their clothes and furniture in storage.

“I dream of my couch and my bed and my kitchen. It wasn’t much, but more than what we have here. We have been here for a long time. This is our home and we don’t have anywhere to go.”

She said she doesn’t know what will happen to them on Tuesday, but accepts it as God’s fate.

Aisha Niyonzima and her five children, also from Burundi but who have lived in Buffelsdraai, north of Durban, since 2011, are in the same predicament.

Her eldest, Amina, who is in matric, says the family is sick with worry.

“We have been here four weeks now. When they came and told us to leave, we were terrified. My brothers and sisters were crying. My parents told us to keep quiet so they wouldn’t realise we were still there. But then they came back and said they would kill us.

“We had to leave school and now we have no idea about what will happen. I don’t know if we will wake up on the morning of June 30.

“We have our documents but that doesn’t make a difference. They want us out and we can’t fight back because we will be killed,” said the teenager.

Her mom said her husband, a mechanic, earned a fair wage, enough to provide for the family.

“We honestly have no idea what is to become of us. We can just sit here and wait,” Niyonzima said.

One of the leaders of the group, Bishop Raphael Bahebwa, said in mid-May hundreds of documented refugees had sought protection from the police after being driven from their homes and communities by threats, violence and intimidation.

He said instead of receiving protection they were left without shelter and hundreds were forced to sleep outside Durban Central Police Station.

On May 19, police used batons, tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets against the refugees, who were later taken to the Diakonia Centre, where supporters of March and March and the MK Party allegedly provoked them.

They were then moved to the reception centre on Che Guevara Road, where all but two were found to have valid documentation.

“On June 15, the police threatened us, telling us that we must leave Che Guevara. Despite continuing threats and repeated warnings that the situation is deteriorating, no effective steps have been taken to guarantee the safety of refugees, restore people to their homes, or act against those responsible for xenophobic intimidation, violence and the destruction of livelihoods,” Bahebwa said.

“Government officials and politicians have repeatedly informed us that we must either return to the communities from which we were driven by threats, violence and intimidation, or accept being taken to the Lindela Repatriation Centre, from where we face deportation to countries from which many of us fled and from which we are legally protected as recognised refugees.”

He said neither of these options is acceptable.

“We cannot return to communities where xenophobic organisations and local mobs continue to operate with impunity and where people who have attempted to return have been threatened, assaulted and forced to flee again. We will not agree to be taken to Lindela — a notorious, corrupt and brutal migrant prison — and forcibly removed to countries from which we sought refuge and in which many of us continue to face acute danger," Bahebwa said.

“Both of the options given to us by the government are in clear violation of international refugee law, fundamental human rights principles and South Africa’s legal obligations to refugees and asylum seekers. The principle of non-refoulement prohibits the return of refugees to countries where they may face persecution, violence or serious harm.”

He said the state has a duty to protect refugees, asylum seekers and migrants from xenophobic violence, intimidation and displacement.

“The responsibility of the state is to act against the organisations, politicians and local mobs that have driven people from their homes and destroyed their livelihoods, not to punish the victims of xenophobic violence.”

For now, they lay their hope for protection in a van full of policemen stationed metres away from where they sleep and are thankful for the generosity of NGOs who bring food and clothes.