Some protesters were seen pelting stones and bottle bombs at foreigners’ houses and stores. As a result, the city tightened police patrolling in several areas, while in some sections police carrying loaded guns were dispatched.
Since mid-February, Johannesburg and Pretoria have witnessed a string of arson and looting incidents targeting residential buildings and stores of foreign nationals and immigrants.
The locals blame the foreign nationals for stealing job opportunities from them and threatening public security.
“Our people, our children selling their bodies, and the others are doing drugs,” said a local resident in Johannesburg.
“If I sell a loaf of bread at ten rand, they are selling it at nine rand – the same bread. Where are they getting it at nine rand?” said another local resident.
There is ongoing anger among the locals for not been able to earn a living.
“If you can hire him, if you say you can give him 50 rand, it’s fine for him, just because he is not a citizen in South Africa. That thing is killing us. We are citizens in South Africa. But no work, we are suffering,” said an unemployed man.
While many foreigners have chosen to leave South Africa, others have stayed back for legitimate reasons. Unlike the locals, these foreign nationals are convinced about their legal identities, but worry that their basic rights and interests have not been safeguarded.
Experts call on South Africans to treat the issue of foreigners and immigrants rationally, instead of resorting to violence. They also appeal to the government to undertake more obligations.
“We need, for example, to recognize that this violence is targeted against foreigners. It’s not random acts of criminality. And therefore, we can have pre-warning systems that alert us to places where there might be risks of high levels of violence. We also need to see a very swift and strong response. We need to see a strong police response, and we need our leadership to come out and condemn this violence,” said Ingrid Palmary, Academic director for migration studies at University of Witwatersrand.
According to data from the UN Refugee Agency, there were more than one million refugees seeking asylum in South Africa and about 2.2 million legal immigrants living and working in South Africa in 2015, while there were about one million illegal immigrants in the country.