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For his gallery, 29-year-old Turkish freelance Eren Aytug visited makeshift camps in the South African city of Cape Town where thousands of refugees have taken refuge after a series of xenophobic attacks.
Says Istanbul-based Eren, whose images have appeared in many Turkish magazines
and newspapers over the last ten years: “The result of the attacks on immigrants
was terrifying: sixty two dead, more than six hundred and fifty wounded, one hundred
thousand people made homeless. Forty two thousand were placed in ninety-five refugee
camps.
It’s been fourteen years since the end of the apartheid regime and the country’s main problems remain unemployment and an unequal distribution of income.
In South Africa, there are five million refugees from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Somalia and various North African countries. They cross the border and then settle in one of the townships. Now they are being accused of making an already tight job market worse by accepting lower wages.
I photographed in refugee camps in May 2008 to understand more clearly what’s going on in South Africa. The struggle in the country against apartheid had always excited me and I couldn’t accept the fact that these are the same communities who are now behaving in this way towards innocent people.
The third image in my gallery is important for me. After the attacks, African
TV channels were broadcasting “enough to crime” notices. The woman in the photograph
is strengthening the meaning of that “enough” phrase on the TV as a victim of
violence and crime.
The fifth image is also important. On entering a tent, I instantly noticed Amina. She was wearing dark clothes and her baby boy, sitting on her lap, had a red jumper.
I think that their glances are simply reflecting their sorrow.”
Eren used a Nikon D300 to take his images in natural light.
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