By- South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party has condemned the brutal murder of a Zimbabwean national, Elvis Nyathi, by a vigilante group in Diepsloot, north of Johanessburg on Wednesday night.
Team24 reported Nyathi’s family as saying the now-deceased had just returned from work when he was stoned and set on fire in the street by the mob.
Earlier in the day, police had clashed with protesters who were blocking roads and burning tyres, demanding that authorities take action against the high crime rate in the area.
In a statement, EFF blamed a vigilante group in South Africa that gained prominence by making door-to-door raids against perceived undocumented foreigners.
This was apparently in reference to Operation Dudula, a vigilante group whose leader Nhlanhla “Lux” Dlamini, whose real name is Ntlantla Mohlauhi joined the protest in Diepsloot. Below is the statement by EFF in full:
The EFF is dismayed and saddened by the painful news, that one Elvis Nyathi was stoned and burnt to death in Diepsloot, Johannesburg in the early hours of this morning.
In tragic, disturbing and unsettling news, Nyathi was a victim of the indiscriminate door-to-door raids by a vigilante group that has gained prominence on the basis of targeting and othering African foreign nationals.
The painful images which are populating South African television screens today are the ashes of what was once a human being, who was burnt alive simply because he could not provide a passport to individuals who have taken the law into their own hands.
Elvis Nyathi is a human being who has lost his life because a group of people have enforced a dompas system in Johannesburg that has resulted in harassment, invasion of property, theft, assault and extortion.
These vigilante groups attribute all crimes in this country to foreign nationals, without any scientific or crime statistics to corroborate their claims.
As a result, it has become a syndicate that extorts people, hijacks houses, loots African-owned retail outlets, burns the stores of Africans and today bums a human being to ashes.
These are the consequences of endorsing and sponsoring vigilante groups by popular media and the ruling party itself, which seeks to scapegoat its inability to fight crime, create jobs and provide adequate healthcare, to foreign nationals.
It is an objective fact that the hospitals of South Africa are collapsing because of a government that has no internal capacity to develop and maintain healthcare infrastructure.
There are no jobs in South Africa because this government refuses to industrialise and has outsourced the duty of job creation and economic growth, to a parasitic private sector.
Crime in South Africa is spiralling out of control, because of an incompetent and self-obsessed Minister of Police who has factionalised the police force and has allowed criminality to brew in the security cluster.
Domestic violence and abuse are perpetrated by the men of this country and the infiltration of drugs in our communities is enabled by South Africans themselves.
It has however become convenient to blame foreign nationals for all of these social ills because those leading our society refuse to take responsibility.
The refusal of the ANC to take responsibility for its failures and its abdication of the duty to create jobs and fight crime has led to the brutal killing of an African brother.
The EFF has long warned that if the various groups which are mushrooming on the anti-immigration ticket are not stopped, it will end in a loss of life. It is unfortunate that in this instance, we have been proven correct.
The EFF will visit the family of Elvis Nyathi and ensure that justice is served to the family.
We send our deepest condolences to his loved ones, who have been robbed in the most brutal manner, of a father, a husband and a son.
May his soul rest in peace.
Note: “Dompass” was the official document that black people had to carry with them to prove their identity and where they could live or work in Apartheid South Africa.