Youth gangs terrorise foreigners

2008-05-18 21:10

Johannesburg - Twelve people have been killed in a wave of weekend violence against immigrants in Johannesburg, police said on Sunday, with gangs of armed youths rampaging through poor areas.

President Thabo Mbeki announced that a panel had been set up to look into the xenophobic attacks and the South African Red Cross said it had launched an appeal to help displaced people.

"Since Friday to now there have been 12 murders," provincial police communications director Govindsamy Mariemuthoo told AFP when asked about the troubles, which intensified over the weekend.

Since the beginning of last week, foreigners have been targeted by mobs carrying knives and guns in some of the toughest inner-city and suburban slum areas despite pleas for calm and widespread condemnation from politicians.

Most from Zimbabwe

Johannesburg police spokesperson Cheryl Engelbrecht said overnight violence had left six dead, 50 people in hospital and a trail of looted shops and burnt cars.

The bulk of the immigrants who have flooded South Africa in recent years are from neighbouring Zimbabwe, with an estimated three million having fled the economic meltdown and political crisis in their country.

They have been particularly targeted as they are blamed by some locals for crime and unemployment. Some Zimbabweans say they are also accused of being behind rising food prices.

As well as the panel to look into the violence, Mbeki urged the police to act firmly against the perpetrators, Sapa reported.

"We hope that the panel and the police will work together and help us answer who is behind this," he was quoted as saying.

ANC president Jacob Zuma also condemned the violence.

"We cannot allow South Africa to be famous for xenophobia," Zuma said from Pretoria.

"We cannot be a xenophobic country."

He recalled the role neighbouring countries had played in sheltering ANC members in their fight against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa.

"We should be the last people to have this problem of having a negative attitude towards our brothers and sisters who come from outside," he said.

Organised gangs

Eric Goemaere, co-ordinator for humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in Johannesburg, said the violence had intensified on Sunday, with victims describing gangs of youths raiding their homes and looking for foreigners.

"The situation today (Sunday) is even more tense than during the week," he told AFP.

"They (victims) say there are organised gangs of 100 to 300 youths who are breaking into homes, apartments and shacks."

"The violence is quite extreme: one woman was thrown out of a first floor window and fell on a car. There is an intention to kill."

In one incident on Sunday, a church where about 1 000 Zimbabweans had been taking refuge was attacked, he said, as well as a local police station that was providing shelter to foreigners.

Situation 'out of control'

Bishop Paul Veryn of the targeted Central Methodist Church told SABC radio: "We consider that the situation is getting so serious that the police can no longer control it."

The acting secretary general of the South African Red Cross, David Stephens, said the organisation had launched a campaign to help victims of the attacks who have been forced to flee.

"We have made an appeal to the public to assist us to help people who are destitute," he said. "We also want people to assist us with an anti-discrimination campaign we want to launch."

Engelbrecht said about 300 people, mainly immigrants, were sheltering in a police station in the inner-city Cleveland area of Johannesburg, where the violence was concentrated overnight.

"A lot of foreign people have been attacked," she added, saying the police had made 10 arrests on Sunday morning.

"Most of the damage has allegedly been done to property belonging to foreigners. A lot of shops have been broken into and several cars have been burnt."

- AFP