South Africa: Wave Of Xenophobic Attacks Against Truckers

Dozens of truck drivers have died in South Africa since March 2018, victims of attacks on foreigners, Human Rights Watch reported on Monday, calling for stronger protection for foreign workers.

The human rights NGO is publishing a report on the issue after a recent wave of xenophobic violence fueled by economic difficulties and record unemployment in Africa’s second-largest economy.

South African trucker groups reportedly attacked foreign drivers with stones, knives, rifles and Molotov cocktails, killing more than 200 people and forcing hundreds of truckers out of their jobs.

A South African Truck Owners Association cited by HRW has reported 75 such incidents since March this year, of which 15 have been independently confirmed by the NGO.

These include the death of a stabbed Zimbabwean driver and a Molotov cocktail attack against another Zimbabwean citizen in the city of Durban, where a wave of violence against foreigners has left hundreds displaced this year .

HRW Director for Southern Africa Dewa Mavhinga called on the South African government to “bring the perpetrators to justice”.

“The South African authorities do not protect foreign truck drivers from violence, nor do they effectively investigate people who are credibly involved in the attacks,” Mavhinga said.

Ministry of Labor spokesman Makhosonke Buthelezi told Nigeria News that his department was not aware of the NGO report but that the government had appointed an inter-ministerial committee to examine the issue and had held several meetings. meetings with employers and truckers in Durban.

“It’s not true that the government is doing nothing,” Buthelezi said.

Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula said after an interministerial meeting in June that the crisis was caused by “a number of foreign drivers in the industry” of road transport, many of whom are undocumented.

South Africa is an important destination for economic migrants in southern Africa, many from neighboring Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe in search of work.

“(Employers) prefer (foreign truck drivers) because they can work long hours at a much lower cost, so they tend to exploit them,” said Buthelezi.

An association of South African road workers called for a national strike on September 2, according to HRW.

The Zambian embassy in South Africa urged Zambian drivers not to travel to South Africa on the day of the strike “unless their safety is guaranteed”.

Immigrants bear much of the anger over chronic unemployment and the limited gains that black poor have enjoyed since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Sixty-two people were killed in a wave of xenophobic violence in 2008 and at least seven in a new explosion in 2015.