Chaotic scenes broke out outside Kalafong Hospital in Pretoria, Gauteng, where members of the EFF’s battalion clashed with Operation Dudula rioters.
Watch: EFF members filmed in fiery fight with Operation Dudula
Public order police used stun grenades and gases to disperse crowds that had gathered outside the Atteridgeville hospital on Thursday afternoon.
According to reports, a battalion of the Red Berets in Ward 59, led by chairperson Aviwe Mdaniso, descended on the hospital to confront a group of Operation Dudula goons who, in the past week, have been running unauthorised identity checks at healthcare centre entrances in and around Johannesburg.
At first, EFF members believed intimidation was enough to scare Dudula goons away from their post. However, the group returned later, greater in numbers and equipped with sjamboks and fire-starting paraphernalia.
Onlookers watched in horror as the Red Berets were ambushed and their political regalia torched.
Here are some video clips of the violent clashes:
According to Mdaniso, the EFF confronted Operation Dudula goons after it was reported that patients at several public hospitals were forced to undergo background and identity checks.
“As EFF, because we are the vanguard of the people, we are the vanguard of Africans, we had to come here and make sure all the healthcare centures open,” he said.
Moreover, Mdaniso claims Dudula goons have been taking matters into their own hands since Limpopo Health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba’s immigration rant that recently went viral, where she squarely blamed illegal immigrants for the country’s derelict healthcare system.
Thursday’s violent clashes, Mdaniso explained, were a culmination of fiery confrontations that occurred between the two groups at different hospitals this week, where patients suspected to be foreign nationals were stopped and forced to present identity documents.
“There is no way that we can have a situation where we have people demanding IDs from people. It cannot be right,” Mdaniso asserted.