No solution to foreign nationals deadlock
NO solution has been found for the problem arising from hundreds of foreign nationals who are camping outside the UN office in Brooklyn.
The parties appeared for the third time this week in the North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, but no order was issued. It was hoped that by this week the stakeholders – the City of Tshwane, Home Affairs and the SAPS – would come up with a plan. Counsel for the Brooklyn and Eastern Areas Citizens Association and the Waterkloof Homeowners Association on Wednesday after the court session again engaged with the various stakeholders to come up with a practical solution.
They wanted the court to issue an urgent interim interdict to prevent the foreign nationals from camping outside the UN building between 5pm and 8am. They also wanted Home Affairs to establish which of the foreign nationals were legally in the country, as well as those who were not.
The residents also wanted the city to deal with the immigrants in terms of the municipal by-laws, for instance, preventing them from causing noise, polluting and cooking and washing their clothes in the streets.
The city said its police officers had limited powers and could not simply arrest anyone. Home Affairs said it did not have the resources to go out on its own to establish who was legally in the country and who was not. The parties met for more than an hour yesterday in chambers with Judge Natvarlal Ranchod. When they returned to court it was agreed that the national and provincial commissioners of police would be joined as respondents to the application. They will file their submissions regarding a solution by Monday and the parties will again meet back in court next Wednesday.
The city’s stance is that it cannot provide temporary housing for these foreign nationals, as it already has to deal with a housing backlog. It further said that the foreign nationals’ demands were not aimed at the city; they wanted to be moved out of the country.
They said Home Affairs and the Department of International Relations and Co-operation should deal with them. A handful of the foreign nationals were back in court yesterday to try to establish their fate. They are not represented in the application.
Alex Mongo Nkoy from the DRC said they had nowhere to go. He said if the police arrived there to force them to leave, they should bring coffins along as the people were prepared to die. “We are not violent people, but we will fight if they want to take us with force.”
He said they want the UN to move them to another country because they were not safe in “xenophobic” South Africa.