Nyasha N Mukapiko
Foreign nationals living South Africa must get back to their own countries, President Robert Mugabe said yesterday during a media briefing just after the Southern African Development Community (SADC) extraordinary summit adding that parents back home were pained watching the gruesome videos and pictures.
At least eight African nationals were killed in South Africa (SA), following the recent xenophobic attacks that rocked parts of KwaZulu- Natal which some termed ‘Afro-phobic’ as most of targeted victims were Africans.
The SADC chairperson who had no kind words for African nationals living in South Africa said he felt sorry for South Africa due to the influx of migrants in their country highlighting that those people were not being pushed but going their voluntarily.
“They think South Africa is the heaven of southern Africa, yes it’s more highly developed, true but go there and you will see that the Africans in the country are very low; it’s the whites who are living better life more advanced life. Long ago going to south Africa was regarded as going to heaven on earth”, president Mugabe said.
President Robert Mugabe went to launch a scathing attack on the people of Matebeland south saying the men and boys from the province think that if you haven’t been to Johannesburg then you haven’t been to a place of good life regardless of what they will be doing there.
The President also indicated that only 800 people were repatriated back home from the 2 400 that were displaced.
“And amongst those we asked questions, the women said they will not go back, the man said ah! We will go back, so what do you do with them? And I don’t think if we sent the buses to Johannesburg and said come that the majority of the people would want to come back home, No! Even though they are suffering”, the president added.
‘Even our students who went to study there, they don’t want to come back and look for jobs here, I don’t what attract them whether they are the big shop”, the SADC chairperson queried.
The Zimbabwean president said he was convinced that the images of people being burned had happened recently though the South African government argued it had happened long ago in the 1980s.
Out of the estimated five million migrants living in SA, 3 million are believed to be Zimbabweans while the other 2 million are thought to be from other African nationals.
There are at least 4 000 Zimbabweans jailed in south African prisons according to a statement that was issued by president Jacob Zuma during a media briefing on the efforts to find solutions to the attacks of foreigners last week.
The South African citizens had been carrying the attacks on foreign nationals accusing them of stealing their jobs as well as increasing crime-rates in their country.
South African president Jacob Zuma who left the country yesterday after attending the SADC Heads of States Extraordinary Summit briefed the regional leaders on the need to treat foreign people as part of South Africa following the assistance which were given to them to fight apartheid.
The SADC chairperson urged other regional heads of states not only to criticize the South African government but also to help in ending the xenophobic attacks.
