Zuma’s refugee warning

President Jacob Zuma has warned refugees in South Africa to behave or risk being discriminated against by government.

Zuma was speaking to the media on the sidelines of the launch of Operation Phakisa in Roodeplaat to speed up service delivery in the agricultural sector.

His warning to foreigners came as marches denouncing illegal immigrants were staged in Pretoria on Friday.

Zuma said South Africa did not “operate like other countries”.

“In other countries refugees are put in camps, but because we respect the human rights here, we don’t. But if they operate the way they do they may be forcing us to discriminate (against) them and yet we thought we could handle the situation,” Zuma said.

Stressing that the marches were anti-crime, Zuma called on some marchers to stop “displaying xenophobic

tendencies”.

“I was told that the marchers in Mamelodi actually had foreigners who were marching with them, who are anti-crime.

“The march in Mamelodi is anti-crime in the main; it is not xenophobic and I have been told that the people leading the march are saying so.”

He said people were forced to march because of incidences of drugs and prostitution impacting negatively on the country and not because of displaced persons (DPs).

Zuma said he recently had a meeting with the security cluster with respect to crime, adding government was working hard to deal with the

situation.