Lydia Chimbirimbiri is leaving South Africa with sad memories that will remain indelible. She and her husband, Isaac Sithole are from, Zimbabwe and had lived in Katlehong, South Africa for a very long time. Six weeks ago, they had their baby, Fortunate. They never thought that their joy will be cut short so soon.
Aggrieved South African youths had hit the streets, combing one house after the order in search of foreigners. Isaac Sithole had fled his home which has been set alight but was caught in the street of Katlehong by aggrieved youths who beat him to pulp and burnt alive.
His wife, Lydia Chimbirimbiri is now a refugee at Tsholo Hall in Katlehong, where displaced persons are temporarily accomodated.
“They were demonstrating, saying: ‘You foreigners you must go back to your place; we don’t want to see you here. You are taking our jobs, you are taking our business.’ They went from door to door, chasing people out. Everything I own was burnt to the ground. I ran for my life. We’ll rather go back to Zimbabwe, rather than die here. He was running for his life but they got him,” she said quietly. “They beat him, they poured petrol over him and they burnt him, just because he was a foreigner.”
“I just need money to go back home to Zimbabwe, but I need my husband’s body so I can bury him. It is at the Germiston mortuary”, she told The Star.
Stella Makosa is another Zimbabwean now in the camp as a result of xenophobia: “Even here you can’t feel safe; they can come with petrol bomb. “Though the police are here, those guys can still come back.”
“Why are they selfish like this; we are all Africans? They know there is nothing to eat in Zimbabwe. We are wearing the same clothes we wore yesterday. There is nothing to eat here”, Makosa’s sister, Mercy, said
