Foreign nationals who arm themselves and fire shots at citizens or police pose a threat to the country’s security and will face a strong response from law enforcement agencies.
This is the warning from South Africa’s Acting Police Minister, Firoz Cachalia, who was responding to several incidents in which groups of foreign nationals allegedly fired shots at anti-migrant protesters.
Cachalia was part of the South African Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration’s media briefing in Pretoria on Sunday. He warned both migrants and South African citizens that the police would deal with any criminal activity, regardless of the nationalities of those involved.
“There was an incident in KwaZulu-Natal. Three Ethiopians who discharged their firearms were arrested and have already appeared in court. And so I do have a message for those people who are in the country illegally, or maybe here from other countries,” said the minister, referring to one of the incidents.
“Why were they armed? Why were they discharging their firearms? There can’t be fiefdoms in South Africa that are, in effect, occupied by groups confronting South Africans. So I just want to be clear about that. The police will take the necessary action, as they did in Natal, in Durban,” Cachalia said during the briefing.
The acting minister also warned anti-immigration protesters that their frustration with immigrants did not entitle them to break the law.
“And the message is the one that we have addressed to our citizens, which is that your responsibility is to observe the law, not take the law into your own hands, not to confront protesters who have a view about illegal immigration in this country as South Africans. When you do that, you can only worsen your own situation. And it’s intolerable that, for instance, that incident in KwaZulu-Natal,” said the acting minister.
Twenty-five people were arrested this week alone, mostly in KwaZulu-Natal, for various offences linked to the anti-immigration protests.
Refugee centres had to close on Friday following violent clashes between local protesters and migrants, who turned out in large numbers after being driven by a misinformation campaign claiming that everyone would automatically be granted asylum.