MUSINA, South Africa (AP) \u2014 It\u2019s 6 a.m. and Tholakele Nkwanyana is one of the first people to arrive at the Diepsloot public health clinic in Johannesburg, not to seek medical attention but to stop foreigners from getting care.<\/p>\n
She and fellow members of South Africa\u2019s anti-immigrant group Operation Dudula \u2014 which means \u201cto get rid of by force\u201d \u2014 are dressed in military-style fatigues as they block the entrance and demand to see patients\u2019 identity documents. Mothers carrying children and others who are sick are turned away and told to go to private hospitals, which unlike public ones aren\u2019t free.<\/p>\n
Similar scenes have played out at government-run clinics<\/a> across South Africa\u2019s most populous province, Gauteng, as healthcare becomes the new battleground in the country\u2019s long and painful debate over immigration.<\/p>\n The Johannesburg High Court has ordered Operation Dudula to stop harassing migrants. The group says it will appeal.<\/p>\n \u201cIn our operations we are saying, \u2018Put South Africans first,\u2019\u201d Nkwanyana told The Associated Press. \u201cThe problem we have is that the influx of foreigners is too much and the medication is not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n Anti-immigrant sentiment can be deadly<\/p>\n Africa\u2019s most developed economy, which hosts world leaders this week<\/a> for the Group of 20 summit, attracts migrants<\/a> from neighboring Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Lesotho and as far away as Nigeria and Ethiopia.<\/p>\n In the year ending March 31, the Department of Home Affairs deported 46,898 migrants who had entered South Africa without documentation, an 18% increase from the previous year.<\/p>\n Operation Dudula emerged a few years ago, and its visibility has grown as mostly young Black South Africans take part. It\u2019s not clear how many members the group has. Its actions have included closing down foreign-owned shops and blocking the children of foreigners from entering public schools.<\/p>\n Operation Dudula members assert that migrants entering without documents<\/a> are taking jobs from South Africans, who face one of the world\u2019s highest unemployment rates<\/a> at over 31%.<\/p>\n South Africa has seen sometimes deadly waves of such sentiment. In 2008, 68 people were killed in attacks on foreigners across the country.<\/p>\n But the focus on denying them health care is new, along with Operation Dudula\u2019s organized structure. The group has regional leaders and participates in news conferences and debates, and it has hinted at forming a political group.<\/p>\n South Africa\u2019s government has condemned Operation Dudula\u2019s actions and insists that the law guarantees health care for everyone, including foreigners in the country illegally.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are healthcare professionals. We don\u2019t turn patients away because they don\u2019t have documentation,\u201d Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has said.<\/p>\n He and others have met multiple times with Operation Dudula and the government has posted security at public clinics, but police are overstretched in a country where the crime rate is high.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThey cannot wait at a clinic just in case something happens. They have a lot of other work to do,\u201d national police commissioner Fanie Masemola has said.<\/p>\n In August, three Operation Dudula members were arrested after going into a maternity ward in Soweto and demanding that patients produce identity documents. Nurses called police. They have since been released on bail.<\/p>\n The South African Human Rights Commission, which has sharply criticized Operation Dudula\u2019s actions, has said South Africa is following a global rise in anti-immigrant sentiment.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have seen them in the United States of America and Europe. It is a trend everywhere,\u201d SAHRC commissioner Tshepo Madlingozi said.<\/p>\n Scapegoats of a broken system<\/p>\n South Africa spends 8.5% of its gross domestic product, or about $15 billion, on health care<\/a>, higher than everything but education. And yet it has overcrowded hospitals, shortages of medication and poor management.<\/p>\n But many people in other African countries<\/a> see South Africa as a relatively attractive destination.<\/p>\n South Africa had an estimated 2.4 million foreign nationals in 2022, about 3.9% of the population, according to official statistics, with no breakdown of those there legally or illegally. That was up from the estimate of over 958,000 in the census of 1996.<\/p>\n \u201cWe acknowledge that there are a lot of problems in the health care sector, the shortage of nurses, the shortage of doctors,\u201d Madlingozi said. \u201cThere is crumbling infrastructure, so there\u2019s a lot of issues. But as a commission, we are quite clear that nonnationals should not be scapegoated.\u201d<\/p>\n A matter of life and death<\/p>\n In May, Zimbabwean national Blessing Tizirai moved from South Africa\u2019s capital of Pretoria, where she had looked for work, to the town of Musina near the border. Four months pregnant, she had been turned away from public clinics several times by Operation Dudula or similar, smaller groups. She chose Musina because Operation Dudula does not operate there.<\/p>\n \u201cSince I arrived, I have never been turned away from the clinic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Nonhlanhla Moyo, who also had come from Zimbabwe in search of work, was among those turned away from the Diepsloot clinic by Operation Dudula.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I\u2019m unable to get my asthma pump, how am I supposed to live? It is very difficult,\u201d said Moyo, who remained in Gauteng.<\/p>\n Both dread the possibility of going to a clinic in Zimbabwe, where the public health system has collapsed<\/a> under chronic underfunding and neglect. Patients visiting public hospitals there often must bring their own medicines, syringes, bandages and even water.<\/p>\n Operation Dudula\u2019s actions have drawn attention in Zimbabwe, where a lawmaker during one recent Parliament debate brought up the group and suggested that the government do something about the rising tensions \u2014 like pay for its citizens\u2019 treatment in South Africa.<\/p>\n Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi replied that the government would not. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe\u2019s political elite largely seek treatment abroad, including in South Africa.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Associated Press writer Farai Mutsaka in Harare, Zimbabwe, and video journalist Alfonso Nqunjana in Johannesburg contributed to this report.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n For more on Africa and development: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/africa-pulse<\/a><\/p>\n The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MUSINA, South Africa (AP) \u2014 It\u2019s 6 a.m. and Tholakele Nkwanyana is one of the first people to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":391433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[40393,7779,356,57,210,1141,9166,1142,409,11689,12489,80,881,2241,130886,67,132,68,107,2238],"class_list":{"0":"post-391432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-aaron-motsoaledi","9":"tag-africa","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-general-news","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-health-care","14":"tag-health-care-industry","15":"tag-healthcare","16":"tag-immigration","17":"tag-johannesburg","18":"tag-migration","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-public-health","21":"tag-south-africa","22":"tag-south-africa-government","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-world-news","27":"tag-zimbabwe"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115580122185599285","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}