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Immigrants with businesses in Eastern Cape fearing for their lives

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Immigrants with businesses in the Eastern Cape are fearing for their lives as criminals continue to target their businesses on a daily basis.

Kidnapping, murder, robbery, and hijacking are some of the crimes they are subjected to. The migrants are demanding protection from law enforcement agencies.

The immigrants left their country of origin for greener pastures in South Africa. However, now they allege they have been given a hostile reception. Many of their businesses have been vulnerable to attacks.

Some business owners got killed in the process, but yet no justice for their losses. Some of them had this to say.

“They are breaking the shops. They are entering the shops and demanding money and if you don’t have money in the shop they are killing us. And we open cases and we don’t get any results and they come back to kill us again,” says a business owner.

“We are very scared. We are in trouble even during the day. During the night we are not sleeping safely. We are not even going along the road safely. We are scared of this thing. I don’t know how government can manage this thing because it is very difficult for us to face this kind of problem,” adds another business owner.

The province recorded 1 045 murder cases between January and March this year. Some of the victims are foreign nationals murdered outside business hours.

Police spokesperson Priscila Naidu explains:

“These shops do not have specific trading hours or are failing to adhere to the various municipal trading times making them vulnerable to attacks. Another challenge in some of the business robberies is that when police do effect arrests, the complainants fail to attend court for various reasons such as migration, which sometimes results in the withdrawal of their cases. At times it becomes a challenge to trace some witnesses.”

Foreign national shop owners in Mthatha lament crimes they endure in April 25, 2022:

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