Poverty within white south Africa

When stories are told about African poverty, race often

seems to play a large part. Based in Senegal, Reuters

photographer Finbarr travelled to South Africa earlier this

year and visited one of a growing number of squatter

camps populated mostly by Afrikaners - white South

Africans - to document their stories and help show that,

despite the fact that impoverished blacks in the region

far outnumber whites, poverty is a human issue, not

necessarily racial. O'Reilly: "While most white South Africans

still enjoy lives of privilege and relative wealth, the number

of poor whites has risen steadily over the past 15 years.

Researchers now estimate some 450,000 whites, of a total

white population of 4.5 million, live below the poverty line

and 100,000 are struggling just to survive in places such

Coronation Park, a former caravan camp currently home to

more than 400 white squatters. Formerly comfortable

Afrikaners recently forced to live on the fringes of society see

themselves as victims of 'reverse-apartheid' that they say

puts them at an even greater disadvantage than the millions

of poor black South Africans.“