An application to evict hundreds of refugees from emergency accommodation at Wingfield in Maitland and Paint City in Bellville, Cape Town has been set down for a hearing on 13 April 2026, reports GroundUp.

The City of Cape Town and the national Departments of Home Affairs and Public Works filed a joint application at the Western Cape High Court in June and served eviction notices to the occupants of both sites in August.

The occupants have opposed the application.

Both pieces of land host large white tents, erected during the covid lockdown to house refugees protesting outside the UN High Commissioner for Refugees offices. 

The refugees demanded to be resettled in Europe or Canada, citing fears of xenophobia, but resettlement to a third country is not standard practice.

The emergency accommodation was supposed to be temporary, but the tents and their occupants remain on the state-owned land.

Despite poor conditions, many of the occupants still refuse offers of assistance or reintegration with local communities.

‘The continued unlawful occupation of both sites poses significant and escalating risks, including serious health and safety hazards to both occupiers themselves as well as to the surrounding community,’ reads a letter to Judge President Nolwazi Mabindla-Boqwana from the city’s lawyers.

Thulani Mavuso, spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs, said last week that the rental for the tents at both sites costs a total of about R1 089 000 a month.

He said the department cannot help resettle the refugees to third countries and that they should ‘reintegrate into society’.

Full GroundUp report