SOUTH AFRICAN MAN BEATEN, IMMIGRANT WIFE JAILED
Man left with 5 kids
By Kimberly Mutandiro
Ernest Mahlangu, a South African Shangaan man, says he was assaulted by a mob during anti-immigration protests on 30 June, who assumed he was an undocumented immigrant despite him showing his South African ID.
Police then detained his Mozambican wife for allegedly contravening the Immigration Act and he has been unable to make contact with her.
Mahlangu (photo below) says years of costly and complicated Home Affairs processes have prevented the family from registering their marriage or securing his wife’s legal status. They have also been unable to obtain birth certificates for four of their five children.
As anti-immigration protests spread across the country on 30 June, Ernest Mahlangu was at home with his wife, Esther Sithole, and their five children in Ekuthuleni informal settlement, in KwaThema. There was banging on the door. Mahlangu opened it to find a crowd carrying long sticks, with police officers behind them.
They accused him of being an “illegal immigrant”. Ernest is South African and Shangaan – a Tsonga-speaking group who live in parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Mahlangu told them he was born in Bushbuckridge and showed them a copy of his ID.
They then turned to his wife, who is Mozambican. He explained they were in the process of legalising their marriage and had planned to travel to the border that day to renew Sithole’s tourist visa.
“The mob insisted on taking me and my family to the police station. Some people beat me up and cursed, asking why I had an immigrant wife and not a local one,” said Mahlangu.
Mahlangu, his wife and children were put into a police van with other immigrants forced from their homes by the mob.
Mahlangu and his children were released, but his wife was kept in custody.
He took his wife’s passport to the police station but says he was brushed off. KwaThema police told him she was at Springs station. Springs police said she was back in KwaThema, where she will appear in court, but he was not told when.
On the evening of 30 June, Mahlangu’s home storeroom was burgled and his bicycle and tools stolen.
Gauteng police spokesperson Brigadier Brenda Muridili confirmed that Sithole is in custody, pending a court appearance for contravening the Immigration Act.
On Monday, Mahlangu said officials at KwaThema Magistrates’ Court told him his wife has since been transferred to Sun City prison and is due to appear in court again on 27 July.
Mahlangu said he feels lost without his wife and cannot answer his children’s questions about her whereabouts.
Documentation struggles
Mahlangu and his wife have been together for more than 20 years. They have tried without success to register their marriage in South Africa, obtain a spousal visa for her, and apply for their children’s birth certificates.
Home Affairs officials demanded DNA tests proving he is the father. He has been unemployed since 2012 and cannot afford them. Only one of his children has a birth certificate.
“The process of getting married to a foreigner and obtaining a spousal visa is also arduous and expensive.
If the process of getting papers for my wife were any easier, we would not be in this mess,” he says.
Vatsonga Machangani like Mahlangu have been targeted by anti-immigration groups, even if they are South African.
“It’s not easy being a Shangaan man. Even though I am a South African citizen, I am being treated as a foreigner,” said Mahlangu.
When GroundUp visited Highland and Ekuthuleni on Monday, houses once occupied by immigrants were empty. Street stalls run by Mozambican immigrants were abandoned, and spaza shops in Ekuthuleni have not reopened after being looted.
In Marikana informal settlement extension 3, several shacks belonging to immigrants were bur nt down. – GroundUp