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YOUR STORY
Living in fear
19/05/2008 14:52 - (SA)
Anonymous, News24 User
On Saturday we had to take our Malawian workers home after they spent the day working for us in Glen Austin, Midrand. There were South African locals posted on all the streets in Glen Austin accosting foreigners (who have valid passports and work permits) and attacking them on their way home and also taking their passports.
Our workers, who don't even live in the township, were terrified. They had tears in their eyes. They have good jobs here and are being persecuted. They are wonderful people, but they are living in fear. They say that in Ivory Park there have been a lot of attacks and this is not in the news.
This violence together with other horrific crimes, which is especially terrible in Midrand, is very under-reported in the media. We are leaving the area, as it is too dangerous. What used to be beautiful agricultural holdings is now a killing field at night and many have abandoned their homes and gone overseas - white people and foreigners alike.
The hatred and violence is unbearable. We had two armed gang robberies last year and scores of other terrifying events, including hijacking attempts and being fired upon by criminals fleeing police by running through our plots. It is a living nightmare.
We lost some of our beautiful horses, plots and both our cars and all our belongings due to crime. We have no way to continue our lives and now our lovely wonderful workers live in fear of their lives.
In Midrand the real statistics of violent gang robbery, which the police did nothing about, was huge with nearly every household being affected many times in one year.
Many of the people from African countries, like Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, are wonderful, honest people and work here legally.
Living in terror is not just a statistic and living in fear of your life is not just a photo - it is real and way too awful. I love this country and the people, but we are now leaving SA as our lives were destroyed by the crime. We employed a lot of people - local and foreign - who are now unemployed because we suffered violent crime in SA.
When we went to report the case, the police told us that robbing white people is not a crime, its only redistribution of wealth and laughed at us even though I was badly injured. There are many things going on that are not accurately reported on. The crime situation in SA is way out of control.
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