Police monitoring De Doorns

2009-11-18 07:59

Cape Town - De Doorns informal settlement was quiet on Wednesday morning after about 2 000 foreign nationals had to be evacuated for safety reasons, Western Cape police said.

"Police are still in the area monitoring the situation," said De Doorns station commissioner Superintendent Desmond van der Westhuizen.

Some 2 000 foreign nationals were moved to shelters in town and others were taken in by farm owners on Tuesday.

Fighting

On Tuesday morning, local residents had prevented foreigners from climbing onto the trucks of farmers coming into the town to collect seasonal workers for the day.

The locals claimed the foreigners - mostly Zimbabweans, but including some Lesotho nationals - were accepting lower wages than locals and robbing them of jobs.

SABC news reported on Wednesday morning that some foreigners started fighting amongst each other about whether they should go to work or not.

The police had to break up a fist fight between them, said the radio report.

- SAPA