By Siphokazi Mnyobe on Ground Up
- On Tuesday evening two properties rented by immigrants had been torched in Kwanokuthula, Plettenberg Bay.
- This comes after dozens of immigrants had been pressured from their properties on Monday evening, when native residents performed door-to-door searches for overseas nationals.
- South African landlords and a few neighborhood members have protested towards the xenophobic violence.
On Tuesday evening, two properties rented by immigrants in Kwanokuthula, Plettenberg Bay, had been torched.
Peter Mukonda, initially from Malawi, stated his shack was set alight whereas he and his girlfriend had been sleeping inside.
“I woke up and kicked the door open. I called for help from my landlady and neighbours,” stated Mukonda. They managed to extinguish the fireplace and save his shack, however he’s now too afraid to sleep at house.
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On Monday, Mukonda had been pressured out of his shack together with dozens of different immigrants ejected from their homes by South Africans who performed door-to-door searches attempting to find overseas nationals.
Many, together with Mukonda, spent the evening in a neighborhood corridor. Earlier Monday night, police used rubber bullets to avert a confrontation between xenophobic vigilantes and immigrants.
After a neighborhood assembly on Tuesday, Mukonda had returned to his shack, pondering issues had cooled off.
Msonja Nganu, from Tanzania, additionally had his home torched that evening whereas he was asleep upstairs. He needed to soar from a second-floor window to flee the fireplace.
“I was lucky the smoke did not kill me first. I am also grateful my children were not here. My passport has been destroyed in the fire. They first closed my barber shop and now my home. I am left with nothing and it hurts so much,” stated Nganu.
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Immigrants in Plettenberg Bay and South Africa
Local landlords of immigrants are livid.
“The houses torched are ours, South Africans. They are now telling us to evict immigrants or we will lose our houses,” stated a landlord, who requested to not be named.
Mukonda’s landlady, Siphokazi Patse Mzayifani, stated immigrant tenants “are like family now”.
The landlords say they’re additional aggrieved after the Plettenberg Bay Magistrates Court on Wednesday launched a person stated to be the chief of the operation to chase out immigrants. He is accused of assaulting Zukiswa Mdlalani with pepper spray in her house.
He was launched with out bail on a warning to not intervene with witnesses. He is to seem once more in court docket on 19 October.
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Xabiso Gungulu, main the landlords and neighborhood members towards the operation to drive out immigrants, stated: “The operation started as a campaign to chase drug dealers out of the community, but whenever the operation gets a tip-off that South Africans are selling drugs, nothing is being done.”
A gaggle of residents and landlords went to the police station after the neighborhood assembly on Tuesday to voice their opposition to the xenophobic violence that had occurred on Monday, and in addition to indicate their help for Mdlalani after she was assaulted.
Mdlalani stated the regulation should take its course. “My children are traumatised but we are not shaken. I could not allow them to intimidate me and I was not going to let them get away with bullying me and my family. I had to exercise my rights and open the case,” she stated.
Southern Cape police spokesperson Captain Malcom Pojie stated two instances of arson had been opened for investigation and in addition a case of public violence.
This article was first revealed on Ground Up
