South Africa’s vigilante groups that feed-off from the growing anti-immigrant sentiment in the neighbouring country are on the rampage once again and Zimbabweans are at the receiving end, this time at health institutions.
According to the results of South Africa’s 2022 census, Zimbabweans are by far the largest immigrant population at over one million or 35% followed by Mozambicans (18.7%), BaSotho (10.2%), Malawians (8.9%) and Britons (2.8%).
It follows that whenever foreigners are targeted in that country, Zimbabweans will bear the brunt of the xenophobic attacks because of the sheer size of their population.
Over the years, South Africans have targeted foreigners for violent attacks because they blame them for their failure to get jobs and other societal problems.
The problem continues to grow because of the emergence of extremist organisations, including political parties, which seem to blame, all of South Africa’s problems on foreigners.
These include Operation Dudula whose latest anti-immigrants campaign is called March to March where they have been targeting health institutions to prevent foreigners from receiving medical care.
So far South African health authorities seem to be unable to stop the rampaging misfits, who have been recorded dragging sick people from hospital beds and preventing children from getting immunised.
South Africa’s constitution, like those of many progressive countries, guarantees each and every individual the right to access health care services, including reproductive health care and emergency medical treatment. It does not exclude individuals from this human right based on their nationality or country of origin.
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We applaud that country’s Health minister Aron Motsoaledi and the Democratic Alliance party for standing up to the hooligans and calling them out for their patently illegal campaign.
At the same time, we want to call on the Zimbabwean government to raise its voice in defence of this country’s citizens, who are being violated in foreign lands.
Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi set the wrong tone last month when he insinuated that Zimbabweans, who were being denied access to health in South Africa were on their own.
The government should treat what is happening in that country as an emergency, before people start dying because they could not access lifesaving medication.
A responsible government would immediately activate systems to work with the South Africans to identify those at risk and roll out initiatives to save lives.
Zimbabwe must also be engaging the South African government to find ways of fighting the xenophobic violence to protect immigrants.
