Cape Town - Scores of Cape Town residents and French citizens living in the city joined people worldwide on Saturday in showing their support for victims slain in the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris.
The group of about a hundred walked along the Sea Point promenade, a few of them crying and comforting one another and at one point they sang the French national anthem.
Thibaud Vibert, originally from France and who has been in Cape Town for five-and-a-half years, said he had felt compelled to show support for his country.
“This is a way of demonstrating to show that we’re affected by what’s happening in France,” he said. “My wife’s cousin was in a restaurant where there was shooting, but thankfully she’s okay”.
Jarita Kassen and Zakiyyah Sablay, both 18 and from Cape Town, said they would have felt uncomfortable saying they supported Parisians without doing something. “There’s been a lot of activism in the country lately. I felt connected because of all the innocent lives that were lost,” Kassen said.
On Monday, in another show of support for Paris, members of the Muslim Students Association plan to leave messages of support and condolence outside the French Consulate in Cape Town.
On Saturday South Africans in Paris described their experience.
Marianne Camerer, a programme director with UCT’s Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice, arrived there on Wednesday and was due to fly home Sunday.
“We woke up with the country in a state of emergency. We’ve been told that all citizens should stay indoors… I’m meant to return (today).” The airports are not closed, but there will be added security,” she said.
Guy Berger, the former head of journalism and media studies at Rhodes University, lives in Paris with his wife Jeanne. He told Weekend Argus they were both safe. They did not live in the area the attacks occurred.
“There is a strong sense that French people have strong feelings, but fear is not among them”.
On Saturday International Relations and Co-operation spokesman Clayson Monyela said the department had not received any reports of South Africans being injured or killed in the attacks.
Weekend Argus