MUSINA, South Africa: It’s 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.
She and fellow members of South Africa’s anti-immigrant group Operation Dudula — which means “to get rid of by force” — are dressed in military-style fatigues as they block the entrance and demand to see patients’ 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’t free.
Similar scenes have played out at government-run clinics across South Africa’s most populous province, Gauteng, as health care becomes the new battleground in the country’s long and painful debate over immigration.
The Johannesburg High Court has ordered Operation Dudula to stop harassing migrants. The group says it will appeal.
“In our operations we are saying, ‘Put South Africans first,’” Nkwanyana told The Associated Press. “The problem we have is that the influx of foreigners is too much and the medication is not enough.”
