Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is releasing a series of five video testimonies from refugees and migrants displaced by April’s wave of xenophobic violence in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal to displacement camps in Chatsworth and Isipingo set up by local authorities.

The organisation hopes that the videos will, in the build up to Africa Day (25 May), showcase the plight of those affected to both South Africans and the world at large, and to encourage people to share their stories as a starting point to inspire solidarity for survival and to stop xenophobia.

Each of these stories exposes the harsh reality of life as a kwere kwere in South Africa: persistent xenophobia that leads to healthcare exclusion, a denial of protection and unpredictable violence from friends and neighbours. Most testify to people continuously on the run: having first fled war and poverty, they now struggle to survive in a hostile South Africa. A number of them experienced similar violence in 2008.

Other videos will question the idea of nationality and emphasize a shared humanity and entitlement to be treated the same as anyone else.

Martin Katana, a Congolese refugee, first arrived in Durban in 2006, having fled ongoing civil conflict in the DRC in 2006. Until April 2015, he lived with his wife Digne Irakoze and their six-month old daughter Mika in Chatsworth suburb. They have experienced xenophobia in most aspects of their lives: taxis, shops and hospitals.

After a series of xenophobic attacks swept across Durban, he brought his family to relative safety in a Chatsworth camp, set up by local authorities after around 6 000 foreign nationals were displaced.

Camp life is difficult; baby Mika is constantly sick and with little in the way of resettlement packages, and few prospects of employment despite refugee status, Martin worries daily about his family’s future.

Click here to watch the first video about Elvira Modesero, a Burundian refugee nurse.

Video commissioned by MSF

The videos were filmed and edited by Durban-based Scholars & Gentlemen