There was drama outside Addington Primary School where parents demanding their children be enrolled blocked all the exits of the school, refusing to allow pupils to leave while profiling them according to their nationalities.
The unpleasant scenes at the Durban school began when anti-foreign nationals marchers staged a protest outside the school demanding that their children be admitted.
What should have been a peaceful march turned nasty when protesters unleashed their anger on pupils, alleging that they were not South Africans. They erupted in the song “Ungayijahi impi iyabulala”, loosely translated, “Do not rush the war; it kills”.
The strong contingent of marchers comprising leaders and supporters of the Dudula Movement, March and March and the uMkhonto weSizwe Party, clad in their respective regalia, subsequently blockaded all the exits of the school.
They demanded that education officials address them. When this didn’t happen, they resorted to profiling pupils on whether they were foreign nationals or not before they left the school.
Terrified pupils and parents screamed and fled for their lives when the marchers chased them, accusing them of being foreign nationals. The angry protesters threw stones at the pupils and their parents. Police had to intervene by spraying the protesters with water to calm the situation.
“If the government will not listen to us, there will be bloodshed,” said one marcher.
At the heart of the conflict is a claim that the school was denying admission to children whose parents are South African and instead favouring children of migrants.
Leader of March and March and a prominent voice on anti-illegal immigration, Jacinta Ngobese, said they will not back down on their demands.
“We can’t be wrong when we want South Africans and their children to be prioritised. We are not xenophobic; all we want is for South Africans to be treated fairly in their own country,” she said.
But the provincial department of education poured water on the claims that pupils had been denied admission. Spokesperson Muzi Mahlambi called the protest a political ploy.
“We do not have any child who has not been admitted. What happened at Addington Primary was undesirable. These are organisations with their own interests and they are not fighting for the children,” Mahlambi said.
He said that of the 1,578 school enrolments, there were over 1,100 South Africans.
“There are lies which are being peddled that 80% of the pupils were foreign nationals and there’s no such thing. There are also lies that the learners are not documented,” he said.
