Melbourne Office of Housing accused of ignoring racial threats faced by African migrants

MELBOURNE - Melbourne’s Office of Housing has been accused of ignoring an African migrant family’s alleged eight-year ordeal at the hands of a racist and abusive neighbour.

Documents presented to Melbourne Magistrates’ Court allege the neighbour threatened to shoot an African man living below his Richmond commission flat and regularly swore at his children, calling them “niggers”, News.com.au reports.

The alleged victim’s wife and Ethiopian mother of seven Fatume Shabal, alleged that the Office of Housing had ignored their pleas to move the family away, despite a magistrate granting an intervention order banning the man from approaching the family or going within five metres of its flat. The 2006 order has since expired.

“I complain to the police when he comes to my door and they move him on and I used to complain to the OoH and security every day but nothing ever happens and for three months now I just shut my mouth,” she said.

However, Office of Housing spokesman Brendan Ryan said “the department had not received a complaint from the family since 2007″.

Shabal, was reduced to tears when describing the daily abuse and threats that she said had turned the family’s pursuit of a better life in Australia into a “nightmare,” News.com.au states.

“Every day he is yelling at my children ‘black dogs, black dogs’ and he starts banging on his floor with a hammer early in the morning,” Shabal claimed. (ANI)