DELFT, SOUTH AFRICA — Shirley Fisher says she was evicted from a hostel near a stadium where soccer’s biggest stars train. Natasha Flores says she was driven out of squatters’ quarters near a new $450 million stadium in one of Cape Town’s busiest tourist areas.

Both ended up in Blikkiesdorp, a settlement of corrugated iron shacks ringed by a concrete fence, home to hundreds of evicted families. Many residents say there is only one reason why they reside in this bleak place, which in Afrikaans means “tin can town.”

“The World Cup,” declared Fisher, 41, without hesitation.

Human rights campaigners say South African authorities have forcibly evicted thousands of the poor to Blikkiesdorp and other settlements to present a good visual image of the nation during the World Cup. Cape Town city council officials deny the allegations. What is clear is that the complaints have exposed the wide gap between South Africa’s rich and poor 16 years after the end of apartheid.