Nigeria to claim for xenophobia

2008-05-28 07:58

Johannesburg - South Africa faced the prospect on Wednesday of a compensation claim from Nigeria over anti-immigrant violence, as aid groups struggled to cope with the tens of thousands of displaced victims.

The country was to set up seven refugee camps for victims who have fled the violence, reported BBC Africa.

The camps will apparently take up to 70 000 people from current temporary shelters.

Opposition leaders, meanwhile, denounced South African President Thabo Mbeki for his decision to attend a conference in Japan, as the violence which has so killed 56 people spread to another province.

Looted shops

Nigeria's Foreign Minister Ojo Maduekwe announced late on Tuesday that they would press South Africa for compensation for its citizens caught up in the xenophobic attacks in the country.

"Following instructions from the foreign ministry, the Nigerian mission has already compiled the list of Nigerians affected during the mayhem with the purpose of seeking compensation from South African government for loss of properties and physical injuries," he told journalists in Abuja.

While no Nigerian was among those killed in the attacks, many have lost their properties and others have had their shops looted, said Maduekwe.

Despite the attacks, Nigeria was still committed to strengthening links between the two countries, he added.

South African aid groups meanwhile were struggling to help tens of thousands of people forced to flee their homes in the two weeks of violence.

Nomfundo Mogapi, a programme manager for the Johannesburg-based Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, said the number displaced was now approaching the six-figure mark.

"According to the different reports we collected, there are between 80 000 and 100 000 people who left their homes," he told AFP.

Most are afraid

At least 30 000 had been forced out in Johannesburg, 20 000 in the Cape Town area and a further 20 000 in the eastern coastal city of Durban.

The focus in the next few days was expected to turn on how to persuade those sheltering in community centres to return to their shacks, many of which have been burned to the ground.

"It's only a very few that are going back, because they are very afraid," said Mogapi. Foreigners have been blamed for high levels of crime and a lack of job opportunities in the country.

The violence spread to another province on Tuesday with the petrol bombing of a Chinese-owned business in Eastern Cape province, undermining claims by the government just a day earlier that the unrest had been contained.

Mbeki's political opponents meanwhile made the most of his decision to attend the Tokyo International Conference on African Development.

Mbeki had managed to compound the sense of remoteness by flying half-way round the world for the conference, said Helen Zille, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance.

Mandela would go to the people

"I have said the president should have been home. He should have had a hands-on approach and he should have intervened much earlier with what is going on," she told AFP by phone from Cape Town.

Bantu Holomisa, president of the smaller United Democratic Movement opposition party, contrasted Mbeki's response to the crisis to that of his predecessor, anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.

"Mr Mandela would have the following day been to townships and addressed the people and gone to the people and addressed the nation," Holomisa told AFP.

Mbeki delivered a rare televised national address on Sunday condemning the "shameful acts" of "savagery" and "barbarity", but it was criticised as too little, too late by South Africa's press.

- AFP