‘We just want peace in our country’ – Ekurhuleni residents protest against undocumented foreigners

Residents from Benoni and Ekurhuleni in Gauteng have embarked on a march against illegal immigrants under the banner “Mabahambe”, meaning “they must go”, on Saturday, highlighting concerns affecting local communities and calling for government intervention. The protestors have blamed illegal foreigners for most of the crimes committed in South Africa. “We want to fix our country in a proper way,” one protestor, Ntsizwa, toldNewzroom Afrika.

“Now we can’t even move now, you understand the way that there are many of these people. I mean, there’s so many crimes that is happening in our country. “There’s so many hijackings, if you can name them.

So why we’re doing this? We want to have a peaceful country.” Protestors spent most of their Saturday moving through the streets of Daveyton as they prepared to hand over a memorandum to the City of Ekurhuleni. It is understood the memorandum outlines residents’ grievances, including the presence of undocumented immigrants, joblessness, high crime rate, and a number of service delivery issues.

[paywall]

Ntsizwa said the protest is to send a message to the government that the ‘March and March’ movement is serious, and “because you might not know what’s going to happen after the 30th.” He was referring to the ultimatum by the movement demanding all undocumented foreign nationals leave South Africa by 30 June, threatening to stage a nationwide shutdown if the deadline is not met. He added that the purpose of Saturday’s peaceful march is to ask undocumented immigrants to go back to their countries of origin to fix their documents and come back to South Africa legally. “We’re not hitting them.

We’re not fighting with them, but we’re asking them humbly so because after the 30th, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Ntsizwa. Some immigrants have reportedly raised concerns about the difficulties they face in obtaining the necessary documentation from both the South African government and the governments of their countries of origin.

[/paywall]