South African President Jacob Zuma
After weeks of xenophobic violence in South Africa and multiple efforts to end it, South African President Jacob Zuma met with leaders of organizations representing foreigners at the Presidential Guest House in Pretoria on Friday. Zuma assured them his government is doing all it can to ensure the attacks stop and never happen again.
Emerging from a five-hour closed-door meeting, both President Zuma and the heads of groups representing foreign nationals described the meeting as the best move undertaken by the government so far in eradicating xenophobic violence.
Speaking to reporters, Zuma said foreign nationals are more than welcome in South Africa and no one has a right to attack them. He also announced that a special government committee has been established to give foreigners swift access to the government when they want to raise concerns.
“I think all of us, the consensus is that the majority of this country are not xenophobic, but there are people at times criminals, who use the situation for their own ends and that therefore we need to work together because we certainly don’t want this to happen again,” he stated.
Leaders of the foreign nationals’ groups used the meeting to raise a number of concerns, ranging from problems in getting residence permits to a lack of punishment for those who commit the attacks.
Read the full story at voanews.com
