Xeno hotspots raided

SAPS: SEVERAL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AMONG THEM

Police and the SA National Defence Force clamped down on xenophobic hotspots in Durban early yesterday to conduct searches and identity checks. More than 200 suspects were arrested, including several illegal immigrants.

3 700 foreigners have been voluntarily deported since the recent attacks on them.

More than 200 people have been arrested, including a number of illegal immigrants, in Durban and Pietermaritzburg since the launch of Operation Fiela in KwaZulu-Natal on Tuesday.

Provincial police said yesterday the operation was targeting those suspected of harbouring criminals and to seize dangerous weapons.

Liquor to the value of R10 000, dagga, four cellphones, two overhead projectors, a laptop and a TV set were recovered.

The majority of those arrested didn’t have the requisite documents to be in the country and would be charged under the Immigration Act, police said.

KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Mmamonnye Ngobeni said: “These operations will continue throughout KwaZulu-Natal. The use of multi-disciplinary teams is complementing our operations and criminals will feel the heat.”

Meanwhile, Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba said yesterday about 3 700 immigrants from African states had volunteered to be deported following the recent deadly wave of xenophobic violence.

Speaking in Cape Town ahead of his department’s budget vote in parliament, he said: “Do we expect them to return? I think so, I think they will return.

“That is why it was so important for us to take their biometric data and to register them.

“So that if they did have documents, we can deal with that. If they did not have documents we can deport them again.”

Home affairs officials said the majority of illegal immigrants who had left voluntarily in response to the xenophobic violence that spread from KwaZulu-Natal to Gauteng last month were from Malawi, Somalia and Zimbabwe.

Gigaba said the government would continue to deport foreigners who did not have the necessary documents to be in the country.

Picture: AFP WATCHFUL. Members of the South African Police Service, backed by soldiers from the South African National Defence Force, conduct searches and identity checks in central Durban yesterday, an area mostly inhabited by foreign nationals.

Picture: Michel Bega SAYING NO. Pupils from around Johannesburg marched through Hillbrow against xenophobia recently. The march was entitled ‘ I am an African Child - I say no to xenophobia’.