President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on South African companies not to employ undocumented foreign nationals to avoid tensions with citizens in the country.
Earlier this month, residents in Alexandra in the north of Johannesburg embarked on the so-called Dudula campaign.
The protest action led by the Dudula Movement targeted undocumented foreign nationals in the township.
Ramaphosa says this is against South Africa’s values and warns that such actions could lead to vigilantism. He was addressing residents in Koster in the North West during the official commemoration of Human Rights Day.
“We should not allow ourselves that those who come from other countries, see ourselves being at war with them because it is unSouth African. The challenges of unemployment that we are facing should never mean that we should go and wage war against those people from other countries because once we do that, we just immediately promote this spirit of xenophobia that now we hate them, that they must go. What we are saying is that yes, we want people to be properly documented in our country, we want employers to be very careful to hire people who are properly documented.”
President Ramaphosa appeals for unity between South Africans, foreigners to avoid xenophobia:
Our struggle for freedom was fundamentally about improving the lives of our people.
Over the past 28 years, the country has made significant progress in tackling poverty and deprivation.#HumanRightsDay https://t.co/xR9cwLl2aO
— Cyril Ramaphosa ?? (@CyrilRamaphosa) March 21, 2022
