Police casspirs and a helicopter were dispatched to the farming town of Robertson, in the Western Cape, to quell violent clashes between seasonal foreign national farmworkers.
Clashes between Lesotho and Zimbabwean foreign nationals broke out in Nkqubela on Thursday night, due to alleged discriminatory employment practices on farms in the surrounding area.
In a statement the Langerberg Mayor Schalk van Eeden said a Nkqubela community meeting was called earlier in the week where unemployed locals addressed their unhappiness that labour brokers were employing foreign nationals and taking their jobs. During the meeting, it was concluded that a protest would take place.
He said approximately 500 residents blocked the entrance to Nkqubela with burning tyres, and throwing rocks at vehicles, to prevent contractors from loading workers onto vehicles. “The protest then turned into a fight between Lesotho and Zimbabwean nationals.”
He said one person has been hospitalised, and 17 people sustained minor injuries, two of which were children. About 20 dwellings of foreign nationals had been broken into and some burned.
On Friday night, the area remained tense as police maintained a heavy presence trying to foiling ongoing attacks.
One of the victims, Abigail Sebrand, 37, told Weekend Argus that she and her two children were left with nowhere to go after angry mobsters entered her home on Thursday night.
Sebrand who works on one of the farms as a fruit picker, sat outside the local Spar fearing for her safety.
"They just started beating us and told us to get out and leave the country because we are taking their jobs,“ she said.
Police spokesperson Brigadier Novela Potelwa said that public order policing unit had been monitoring Nkqubela and a helicopter had also been dispatched to the area.
Detectives were investigating cases of public violence.
Potelwa rubbished social media reports indicating that people and children died or were set alight in the Robertson clashes.
"This as fake news aimed at causing unnecessary panic," she added.
Mediation efforts continued on Friday between the volatile groups with the local police, the municipality, the farming community and the department of labour playing a leading role.
Another displaced Zimbabwean sought refuge outside the Robertson police station in fear of possible attacks and told Weekend Argus that he was afraid of going back to work or the community and would rather use his pay to make the 21-hour trek back home.
On Friday the GOOD Party slammed the clashes in the area.
The party’s secretary, Brett Herron said tensions like the one that erupted in Robertson was a direct consequence of the country’s non-existence immigration policy and porous borders.
“It is also a situation for which farm-owners must account. For it is they who have systematically reduced the number of South Africans they employ and accommodate on their farms, in favour of cheaper and more exploitable foreign labour,” he said.
“The GOOD Party condemns the perpetrators of the violence in Robertson, and calls for their arrest and deportation. We further condemn all who seek to manipulate anti-foreigner emotion for political ends.”