Xenophobes on the rampage
"They attacked me with sjamboks and 'azembe' beating me over the head and chest, even as I ran for my life," a Mozambican man relived the bloody xenophobic attack on him in his shack, situated at the informal settlement next to Polmaise Mine on Saturday.
A group of at least eight axe and sjambok wielding men attacked foreign males at Plot 18, where they say at least a thousand people had staked their claim on land.
While Antonio Mandlana shows the lacerations to his head and arms, his fellow countryman, Thomas Bulule, struggles to rise from a mattress in the garage of his part time employers, Mr Joe van der Linde and Ms Lezana van Tonder, to tell his horrific story.
With a stiff, bruised neck, and bloodshot eyes, Thomas shivered uncontrollably while he recalled how the mob kicked down his doors and cornered him in his bed.
Yes, the Zulus finally came for them, despite three lapsed years of peace in their subdued squatter camp next to the mine heaps.
“They kept beating me mercilessly with weapons that cut me all over,” Thomas almost whispers.
Both him and Antonio has found refuge at the home of Joe and Lezana.
“We are stunned at the brutality with which these two men were assaulted,” Ms Van Tonder told the Observer adding that the men “had to flee for their lives into the bushes, they’ve lost everything, their homes, their clothes, their money, their lives,” she said bitterly.
The men has been living in the squatter camp the past three years and both say that they’ve never experienced any victimization before.
On Saturday things however changed without warning.
“As they were beating me they kept yelling “go back home, get the f*** out of our country,” Thomas recalls.
Concussed and with blood oozing from his head wounds, Thomas ran to his aunts house, where he later met up with Antonio who crept there for safety when the mob lost his trail.
The aunt organised a lift to the hospital for the men who were both discharged on Tuesday, two days after the attack.
The men say they came to South Africa in 2009, looking for work, since they couldn’t find employment in their own country.
Ms Van Tonder chimes in, “would you believe that when we offer piece jobs to South Africans, like loading building rubble, they give the heap one look, turn around and walk away,” she repeats the cliche so many South African employers have expressed.
“We’ve known these two men for years, and because of their work ethic, their respect, their satisfaction for any job, we will always pick them above our lazy countrymen,” she added.
“I know in my heart of hearts, that if ever there were any trouble, Thomas and Antonio would shield us with their own bodies, how can we not invite them into our sanctuary when all hell is breaking loose around them,” Ms Van Tonder asks.
Antonio chose to overnight at an uncle’s house in Mhluzi, though he by no means feels safe.
Worse even, they were both in the country legally, but the first thing that was seized during the murderous assaults, was their documents.
“They want us out, even if it means being locked up and deported despite having documents,” Antonio shook his head.
“We want them locked up,” Thomas’ muffled voice rises from the rubber padded garage floor – Insulation against the cold, one thinks, staring at the man whose body reflects hard, physical labour.
“We have nothing, nothing…” Thomas shrugs in pain.
Police confirmed that a case of assault with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm, has been opened.
The men say that they can positively identify some of their attackers, but they’re both too afraid to go back.
“We don’t know how many men were attacked, but it wasn’t just us,” Thomas and Antonio agrees.
