Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Saturday expressed shock and disgust at attacks on immigrants in neighbouring South Africa and said his government was working to bring back home affected Zimbabwean citizens.
At least four people have been killed in a wave of anti-immigrant violence in South Africa that started two weeks ago in the port city of Durban and spread to Johannesburg.
Mugabe said during a speech at a football stadium in the capital Harare to mark 35 years of Zimbabwe’s independence that all Africans in South Africa should be treated with dignity.
“I would want now to express our sense of shock, disgust as we abhor the incidences which happened in Durban,” Mugabe said.
“The act of treating other Africans in that horrible way can never be condoned by anyone,” said the 91-year-old, speaking on behalf of the regional Southern African Development Community and African Union, both of which he currently chairs.
An estimated one million Zimbabweans live in South Africa having escaped an economic crisis and political violence at home over the last 15 years.
Periodic outbreaks of anti-immigrant violence in South Africa have been blamed on high unemployment, widespread poverty and glaring income disparities.
The Malawian government has hired buses to repatriate 500 of its nationals, Information Minister Kondwani Nankhumwa said on Friday. He urged South Africa to provide greater protection for immigrants, echoing demands from China and the African Union.
Mugabe said his government had put in place measures to bring back its citizens but did not give details.
The state-owned Herald newspaper reported that Zimbabwe planned to repatriate 1,000 citizens and was setting up a receiving centre at Beitbridge, the biggest border post with South Africa
I guess what our former acting President said about South Africans was very RIGHT!
Yeah and he was attacked from all angles because of what he had said. For sure Sikote was right.
IS THIS WHEN YOU ARE AGREEING WITH OUR DR GUY SCOTT? IF IT WERE SAID BY A BLACK AFRICAN YOU WOULD HAVE AGREED IMMEDIATELY. BUT, BECAUSE IT WAS A WHITE ZAMBIAN YOU CHOSE TO UN OBJECTIVELY CONDEMN SCOTT WITHOUT EVEN ASKING OR CONSIDERING WHY HE SAID SO. THIS REACTIVE CONDEMNATION OF SCOTT DUE TO (PROBABLY) HIS COLOUR IS RACISM IN ITSELF. NEXT TIME BE CAREFUL WHEN RESPONDING (LOUDLY OR SILENTLY) TO SOMEONE’S SENTIMENTS. GUY SCOTT IS A VERY HIGHLY EDUCATED MAN. WHEN HE SAYS SOMETHING, HE IS SAYING IT WITH AUTHORITY.
The 20 000 Ndebeles Mugabes regime murdered in 1983 using his North Korean trained Fifth brigade were also Africans just like the 4 South Africans and Foreigners who died in the Xenophobic violence. Truth is Mugabe has killed more Africans compared to the xenophobic hoodlums in South Africa.
Mugabe should not transfer responsibility for caring for millions of his people to South Africa. It is the same message for the Nigerians and others. Learn to take care of your own people. Stop exporting your people, some of them undesirables, to South Africa. Where is your pride? South Africa has her own problems and citizens to look after.
This is the result of that brainless king-
Mugabe must keep quite. His people are refugees today because of his foolish behavior. He has held in power for ever since independence and his holding of power does not translate into economic progress for his country. He does not allow free political participation for his people. He denies his people basic Hunan rights and deals with dissent view in his party ruthlessly. He has outdone everything he stood for prior to attaining independence and today his people are suffering all over the world. He is the last person to tell us about horrific acts. Remember the killing of the people in Matebeleland in the 1980s. He too cannot allow people to enter Zimbabwe illegally and do as they wish. Downtown Johannesburg is filthy because of his people who post ads of penis enlargement. We need order
African leaders should stop talking past and around the problem,they should stop stealing the donor money and develop their respective economies.History teaches us that when you over extend yourself externally you are bound to weaken yourself internally.No country in Africa can shoulder the ills of the rest of the continent.South Africa wants to be seen as the “Global Disciples of Ubuntu” while brashing aside its social ills.Africa Unite,Africa stop stealing from your poor so they can be comfortable in their places of birth.
Wait! President Mugabe is the head of the AU and SADC, when and how? Why did no one tell me hahahahaha.
Viva President Nawakwi.
Put your economies and politics in order. Why should your citizens be all over the world?
As for South Africans, please start using your brains and not emotion. Yes, your good economy at Independence attracted many of us but with bad economic management and poor politics the poverty levels among the locals has made them to behave like rabid dogs. South Africans, please remember your own citizens, black and white, are all over the world and they are still moving out.
What about our
only &1 CHAGWA
no say on Zambians
who are camping
at Police Stations in SA?
“TOO BAD TO ZAMBIANS COZ OF FRIENDSHIP WITH SA”
Ati black Friday, what happened? Police cancelled it. Spar,shoprite, pick n pay, Dstv you name them,all Those shops don’t belong to black south African but whites. If they go ahead to closing them again who is going to suffer? us. Remember not too long ago Dstv increased its subscription fee us Zambians cried like babies. Now tell me if they closed Dstv what is going to happen? People will die. so when making comments please,please think twice. After all We as Black Africans don’t like one another that’s why black south Africans are behaving like that,like baboons in trees in the bushes. All African Presidents should start making their countries safe for human habitant not the way things are in African countries.
How can one million people from one country migrate to a neighbouring country? This tyrant (Mugabe) has destroyed the economy of his country totally through myopic leadership, forcing people to seek for greener pastures beyond borders. How can you dictate a country about 30 years as you witness such hyperinflation and continue clinging on as people continue suffering? At the same time, i totally condemn these acts of hooliganism in South Africa in the strongest terms possible.
That Zulu “king” should be dragged to the Hague for his hate speech which has led to the deaths and violence. He was referring to immigrants as “lice” and “ants” who should be got rid off! This is the sort of language that led to genocide in Rwanda.
Good day Africa, we may have different views about this horrific acts in south africa now. The bottom line is that we agree that it is not good for both of us South Afticans and Afticans. Let us stop it now and it start we us! Let it not be repeated! We are ONE. In my veins runs the blood of a sister in Congo, a brother in Tanzania, a uncle in Zambia, a aunt in Mozambique, a grandfather in Malawi, a friend in Kenya, a soccer player I love in Senegal and Ivory Coast, a musician in Nigeria and Mali. We are ONE. Xenophobia must stop NOW! We are all victims of colonialism! Let us all be positive and work towards a United Africa of Nyerere, Kenyata, Sobukwe, Lumumba, Mandela, Haile Selassie Nkwame Nkrumah. Let the spirits of Steve Biko, Amilcar Cabral & Ken Saro Wiwa lead us to unity!
What did you do to the white Zimbabwean farmers Bob ?
Very bad days for Africa. Hope God will deliver us from this nonsense. I thank you…