Tangeni Amupadhi
A band of robbers and kill-ers is terrorising African immigrants in Johannesburg in what appears to be a systematic elimination of the foreign nationals.
The latest casualty was Djo Ongonga Okamba from Brazzaville, the capital of Congo. He was shot dead last week, days before he was to leave for his home town.
Two other murders of French-speaking Africans in the past few months have been confirmed, but members of the French-speaking community talk of at least six more killings of immigrants from Senegal, Cameroon and Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Okamba’s murder has prompted the Congolese embassy to write a letter of concern to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After being flooded with pleas for protection by Congolese nationals, the embassy took up the matter with the police in Yeoville, east of the city centre, to get to the bottom of the case.
A witness to Okamba’s murder said he was gunned down by a man known as “Coloured.” The witness and friends of Okamba said Coloured has shot dead two other immigrants. They said the man accused of shooting Okamba is freely roaming the streets of Yeoville two weeks after the incident.
Okamba’s friends and other foreigners complain police fail to act against Coloured and other killers.
The violence against the foreigners is often carried out with impunity as authorities ignore complaints from outsiders. Okamba is one of the latest victims of the antagonistic South African attitude towards Africans from other countries on the continent.
In September, three hawkers from Senegal and Mozambique were killed on a train in Pretoria by people coming from a march to protest against foreigners taking their jobs.
Okamba left Brazzaville two years ago to ply his football skills in South Africa. He did not make it in soccer, so he became a hawker in Cape Town.
This year, 25-year-old Okamba planned to leave South Africa to try his luck at soccer in France. His mother had invited him to spend Christmas with the family in Congo before going to France. She bought him a one-way ticket from Johannesburg to Brazzaville.
On Friday December 4 , Okamba took a bus from Cape Town to Johannesburg, from where he would have flown to Brazzaville. By Sunday, around 8 pm, Okamba was lying dead on a street in Yeoville. He had gone to telephone a friend in Cape Town. The witness to the shooting said Okamba was returning to his friends’ Yeoville flat when he was confronted on the street by Coloured.
The witness claims he heard Okamba say: “What’s the problem? I don’t know you.”
Coloured then drew a gun and shot Okamba “through the heart”, the witness said. When police arrived at the scene the witness said he told them who the suspect was and where to find him.
Johannesburg police representative Mark Reynolds said the witness to Okamba’s shooting is too scared to come forward and identify the killer for police. Reynolds said police are working through the Congolese embassy to “meet him [the witness] on neutral ground” because he refused to go to the police station.
The witness told the Mail & Guardian he is afraid the police might “betray” him and reveal his identity to Coloured.
A close friend of Okamba, Ghislain Omberowa, said: “The same guy has killed a Zairean and an Ethiopian in the same street, but he has never been arrested. We know the killer, we know where he stays, and the police have been told about him but they do nothing.”
The day after killing Okamba, Coloured boasted to another Congolese how he shot and killed a Nigerian, said Omberowa.
“He obviously thought Djo was a Nigerian but he also told a South African friend of ours that he hates foreigners and he will continue killing us,” Omberowa said.
He added that Coloured usually stands at a street corner next to his apartment in Yeoville, stopping African immigrants and searching them for money.
“He is not alone – they are three or four,” Omberowa said.
Reynolds said three foreigners had been killed in Yeoville this year. He denied that police have been informed about the identity of the suspect. Reynolds could not say whether the motive for the killings is xenophobia. “Unfortunately these things surface from time to time,” he said.
The head of the murder and robbery unit in Hillbrow, Captain Ken Oldwadge, confirmed the killing of African foreigners, particularly from “up north”.
“We do have such incidents, and they are quite frequent,” Oldwadge said. “Contrary to public opinion, suspects are arrested from time to time.”
Immigrants said as many as 10 senseless killings have been committed this year in Berea, Hillbrow and Yeoville. Police were unable to confirm the figures. Oldwadge said most murders in Hillbrow are drug-related.