Undocumented Migrants | Daveyton residents take to the streets

Added: 2026-06-07

[00:00:00]Residents will continue protesting against undocumented foreign nationals, but they will not shut down the country.

[00:00:08]That's the message from Amabutho leadership on the ground as residents in Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality took to the streets of Daveyton in Gauteng today calling for stricter enforcement of immigration laws.

[00:00:22]The message from Amabutho leader Nkosi Khona Ndaba Ndaba is a direct response to the Minister in the Presidency, Buti Manamela, who warned last night that there would be no shutdown.

[00:00:35]Her warning followed a March 2 March deadline set for the 30th of June, by which time protesters said undocumented foreign nationals should have left the country or they would shut it down.

[00:00:47]>> We are not aggressing. 30th of June is the deadline and it is there. So, people must still take it serious, very, very, very serious.

[00:00:55]>> But it did say that the Presidency's response was rather a cowardly move.

[00:01:00]>> He told us there would be a dialogue.

[00:01:02]What Why must we go and sit on a dialogue? What we must talk about? Why we must go and sit down and talk? They are children who are dying out of chips.

[00:01:11]They are children who are being abducted.

[00:01:13]>> Minister Buti Manamela warned last night that any attempt to shut down economic activity will be met with police action.

[00:01:21]>> As we have indicated before, there's nobody who's going to do a shutdown of this country.

[00:01:29]And we must be very clear on that.

[00:01:31]>> That threat set the tone ahead of this March by Greater Benoni as the residents joined a wave of organizations marching for the same cause. Among their demands are calls they say will enable residents across the metro to recover socially, rebuild economically, and begin healing as a community.

[00:01:52]>> We have a memorandum that we're going to deliver to the municipality with different uh uh uh problems that we are having including issues of housing.

[00:02:06]The the the the housing department it should it should account for those houses that they are occupied by foreigners. We don't know how and then and also the issues of developments like as I mentioned issues of electricity, issues of of of water.

[00:02:24]But we can't allow foreigners to benefit on our expense.

[00:02:30]>> The memorandum has since been handed to both subs in Ekurhuleni as well as the metro's MMC for community safety, Mzayifani Ngwenya on behalf of the municipality.

[00:02:41]What is the deadline that they've given you?

[00:02:43]>> We are not sure because what they are consistently saying in these matches is that on the 30th they don't want to see any of the illegal foreign nationals in South Africa even those who have have spaza shops. They don't want to see any.

[00:03:00]>> As anti-undocumented foreigner protests have spread across the country in recent days, President Cyril Ramaphosa has recently pledged a tougher government response to migration issues while cautioning against xenophobia and vigilantism.

[00:03:16]Nomfundo Xulu-Tanje, SABC News, Daveyton, Gauteng.