Concern over escalating targeted attacks against foreign nationals in SA
ON April 7, we woke up to the horrific images of a pile of ashes, the remains of Elvis Nyathi (43), a Zimbabwean man, who was brutally murdered after a violent mob stoned and burnt him to death in Diepsloot, northern Johannesburg in South Africa. His only crime was “failing to produce a passport”.
No one deserves to die merely for being undocumented and certainly not for merely being an immigrant.
We would like to offer our sincere condolences to his family and friends. May his soul rest in eternal peace.
The scale of brutality that has broken out in parts of South Africa, mainly low-income, poor localities in Gauteng, has led to extreme terrorisation of foreign residents as locals target “illegal” immigrants whom they demand must be deported from South Africa.
The anti-immigrant sentiment singularly blames foreigners for displacing South Africans from spheres of economic life including but not limited to, jobs and housing while also squarely blaming them for the everrising crime rate, falling wages, stretching public health facilities, drug and human trafficking and squeezing social grants, among other charges.
As is to be expected where vigilante groups such as Operation Dudula, All Truck Drivers Foundation (ATDF) and the South Africa First Party are involved, the violence has already led to a tragic loss of life.
Section 11 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, like Article 4 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that the country is party to, guarantees and protects the sanctity of life.
While the locals may have legitimate grounds to raise socioeconomic issues impacting their daily lives on account of the immigrant influx, the killing of a fellow humans cannot be tolerated.
Zimbabwe’s political, economic and social crises continue to cause intense misery among its inter-generational population.
Its oldest population is wasting away, many with hardly any personal savings and pensions after years of economic turmoil and inflation. The working middle-aged population faces the daily consequences of an underperforming and badly managed economy that essentially exists to enrich the ruling elite and the politically connected.
By far one of the starkest indicators of the hopelessness and helplessness that pervades the Zimbabwe situation has been mass migration, into neighbouring South Africa, with the rest scattered elsewhere, including mainly in Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, United Kingdom, United States, Australia and Canada.
Zimbabweans escaping the political and economic turmoil across the Limpopo arrive in South Africa without proper documentation, in some cases through no fault of their own.
People in Matabeleland and some parts of Midlands, for example, were affected by the Gukurahundi massacres in the dark 1983-1987 period.
For children whose parents were killed or disappeared, obtaining national identity documents necessary to acquire a passport has been a three-decade nightmare.
While we acknowledge reports that the Zimbabwe’s Consul General in South Africa has begun “engaging the South African government at all levels”, we remain concerned by the government of Zimbabwe’s shocking lack of concern for the generality of Zimbabweans caught in the crosshairs of deepening socio-political and economic crises.
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition