THE Bolobedu SAPS took to Ga-Rapitsi village in Kgapane to raid residential homes for undocumented foreign nationals last week Thursday.
Captain Kgetha Ramphele said that this cause of action came after the community of Ga-Rapitsi lodged complaints regarding their safety in the community due to living among them, he also told the LETABA HERALD that the police took to acting as a measure to avoid having the community taking matters into their own hands because that would cause an outburst and a sprawl of Xenophobic attacks.
Captain Ramphele of the Bolobedu SAPS, along with his team, arrested a total of 11 Zimbabwenn nationals of which three were women and eight were men.
During a raid of one of the houses in Burkina Faso, outside Ga-Rapitsi, three men broke a window of the room they were occupying and fled from the police.
Read: BOLOBEDU: 14 suspects arrested for various crimes
Only one was caught after the police threatened to open fire, but the other two men managed to escape still.
“This is an indication that they know they are in the wrong and are at risk of getting sent back to their home country,” said Captain Ramphele.
He further told the HERALD that as the SAPS, they are not against these foreign nationals being in South Africa, however, they just want them to be in the country lawfully in order to avoid having them labelled with crimes they may have no connection to.
After having raided a few houses to no fruitful arrests, the police believed that the escaped foreigners from the house they raided previously had gone to other houses to tip the others off regarding what was happening.
“We will be working with Home Affairs to get illegal migrants back to their countries. If they are serious about working here, they will do what is right and fix their papers in order to avoid more raids and hostile treatment from the communities they are in,” exclaimed Captain Ramphele.
The three women that were arrested on Thursday night were later released during the weekend due to the fact that they had children to take care of.
They were told to make an appearance at the Magistrate’s Court on Monday morning, to which Captain Ramphele stated that they did not appear in court and could not be found within the community.
However, the other suspects appeared in the Bolobedu Magistrate’s Court on Monday morning and they were given the option of being sentenced to three months in prison or to pay a fine of R300.
Captain Ramphele said that the women who did not appear for their court cases will be sought after by the police in order to have them also tried by the court.
