The Siyafana Sonke Action Campaign (SSAC) has called for the immediate arrest and prosecution of March and March leader Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, accusing her of inciting violence against vulnerable refugees in Durban.
The demand comes after a confrontation between March and March supporters and refugees outside the Department of Home Affairs’ Refugee Reception Office on Che Guevara Road on Thursday, which descended into violence. Police deployed teargas, rubber bullets and stun grenades.
Several people were injured during the confrontation while foreign nationals were taken to hospital and Police also made arrests.
SSAC, in a statement issued on Thursday, said Ngobese-Zuma and other leaders of March and March should face criminal prosecution over what it described as an escalating campaign against migrants.
“We call for the immediate arrest and prosecution of the ringleaders of March and March, Jacinta Ngobese Zuma, Nkosikhona “Phakelumthakathi” Ndabandaba and Ngizwe Mchunu, who have incited violence against migrants across South Africa,” the statement reads in part.
“It is patently obvious that their incitement has borne violent fruit, and it undermines faith in the justice system for the state to allow the continued attacks on members of the migrant community. These individuals and their supporters say they are against illegal immigration, but they are instigating the forced removal of verified, legally documented refugee families,” the statement continued.
It said the state’s failure to act against the movement’s leaders was undermining confidence in the justice system. The call follows a clean-up operation announced by March and March.
The confrontation is the latest chapter in a crisis that has unfolded in Durban since May.
Government has also offered foreign nationals an option of being accommodated at the Lindela Repatriation Centre in Gauteng but the organisation has rejected that option.
“The other ‘solution’ proposed by the state is that the refugees should depart for the notorious Lindela repatriation camp in Gauteng. While the desperate conditions might encourage some of the refugees to accept this option, most of these refugees have lived in KwaZulu-Natal for years, if not decades. They have built entire lives and relationships in the province. Simply uprooting entire families and relocating them to another province is an exceedingly inhumane approach to this issue. The proposed ‘solution’ resembles forced displacement, and we should not shy away from interrogating why this is happening,” the statement reads.
The government has maintained that Lindela is the only Home Affairs facility with the infrastructure and capacity to temporarily accommodate people in a safe and secure environment. It also said that it is not establishing refugee camps.
Ngobese-Zuma subsequently accused authorities of failing to deal with alleged criminality at the site.
On Facebook she alleged that foreigners had guns and accused them of abusing, robbing and insulting members of the surrounding community. She also alleged that a firearm had been discharged during the confrontation.
SSAC has now seized on the clean-up language as evidence of what it describes as an increasingly dangerous campaign.
The organisation says the language is dehumanising and called for it to be withdrawn, together with an apology.
March and March has consistently presented its campaign as being directed at illegal immigration rather than refugees or migrants generally.
Ngobese-Zuma said in June that the movement’s campaign was aimed at getting “illegal foreigners” to leave South Africa, after the group had declared 30 June as a deadline for undocumented migrants to leave the country.
The movement has also rejected accusations that it is xenophobic.
