South Africa has been gripped by anti-foreigner violence: Police have struggled to contain the crowd of rioters who have looted shops and torched vehicles in various towns. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Police in South Africa reported on Tuesday that five people have been killed in xenophobic attacks which began in Johannesburg and spread to the capital, Pretoria, as President Cyril Ramaphosa vowed to clamp down on what he described as “acts of wanton violence.”
News24, a South African news agency, said riots came after hundreds of people marched demanding foreigners leave, claiming that they are behind drug-dealing and unemployment. Protesters targeted shops and trucks they believed to be owned by foreign nationals, News24 reported.
The group clashed with police, who fired rubber bullets and, arrested over 189 people in Alexandra, a township in the Gauteng province of South Africa.
Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana, general secretary of the South Africa Council of Churches said on Tuesday the xenophobic violence has left the country in a “state of shock.”
“The violent acts, burning and looting of business premises in the city centres and townships in Gauteng have left the country in a state of shock that things can degenerate to a point of such violence without us attending to the various underlying and causal issues,” Bishop Malusi said, according to South African daily newspaper The Times.
“The issues of competition for scarce employment opportunities and the belief that foreign Africans in particular are part of the problem is at the core of these protests. There should be no room for criminal acts of violence against people and properties. Such acts must be condemned everywhere without equivocation,” he added.
Lungelo Dlamini, a spokesman for police, said the motive behind Tuesday’s riots was not clear.
“They are just criminals who are looting and taking advantage of the situation,” he told Al Jazeera.
The Archbishop of Durban, Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, O.F.M, told Vatican News that every life is precious and attacks against foreign nationals and migrants are wrong.
Clergy also said politicians must stop steering up anti-foreign sentiments.
“Xenophobia is not wrong just because someday I might be on the run and take refuge in someone else’s country. It is wrong because that person (the foreigner) is made in the image and likeness of God – just like me,”
Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier told press.
“Everyone, has a life that is of supreme value. It does not matter where that person comes from, their origins, how they have come. It does not matter. Human beings are made in the image and likeness of God,” the Cardinal emphasised.
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday condemned the wave of xenophobic violence.
“Attacks on businesses run by “foreign nationals is something totally unacceptable, something that we cannot allow to happen in South Africa,” Ramaphosa said in a video address diffused on Twitter.
“I want it to stop immediately,” said Ramaphosa, adding that there was “no justification” for the violence.
According to The Daily Telegraph Newspaper, while most illegal foreigners are from African countries, such as Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Burundi, there is a steady flow of illegal nationals from Pakistan who mostly enter the country from Mozambique.
South African truckers also started a nation-wide strike on Sunday to protest against the employment of foreign drivers.
They staged road blockades and torched foreign-driven vehicles in various parts of the country on Monday.
Police say about 200 long-haul drivers were injured or killed on the 350 mile highway between Johannesburg and port city Durban last year, while more than 2000 trucks were attacked.
According to The BBC, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari sent an envoy to South Africa to “express Nigeria’s displeasure over the treatment of her citizens”.
How many ‘foreigners’ are in South Africa?
The population of South Africa is about 57.73 million people of diverse origins, cultures, languages, and religions. The 2011 census was the last held and the next will be in 2021.
According to the 2011 census, South Africa isn’t overwhelmed with immigrants, with some 2.2 million international migrants (about 4% of the population) in the country in 2011.
Notably, the Department of Home Affairs – South Africa has deported close to 400,000 foreign nationals since 2012.
News Agencies contributed to this report.
