This follows the displacement of hundreds of residents, west of the city of Johannesburg. The community of Sporong were forced to flee that area following months of alleged violence and intimidation by illegal miners. Mashaile says all criminal elements should be harshly dealt with.

“We do not have a problem when people from other countries come here to eke out a living, but the moment they carry illegal automatic rifles like the AK47 that they use in conducting their illegal and criminal activities we want government to arrest those individuals, to prosecute them, to incarcerate them and send them to their home countries, to serve their jail sentences,” he said.

–SABC–