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Mbeki under fire as South Africa violence spreads

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-05-27 22:00

Demonstrators march through the streets of central Johannesburg to protest against recent xenophobic attacks that have left at least 42 people dead and thousands of African immigrants displaced, May 24, 2008. [Agencies]

Newspapers said that Mbeki's address had been a start, but had failed to quell the anger among South Africans who have blamed foreigners for high levels of crime and lack of employment opportunities.

Up to three million Zimbabweans are now believed to be in South Africa having fled the economic meltdown in their homeland, and they are frequently accused of taking jobs from locals.

The Sowetan newspaper contrasted the response of large sectors of the public, who have donated food, blankets and clothing to those displaced the violence, to the response of the stayaway Mbeki and his government.

As well as the thousands of mainly Zimbabwean and Mozambicans who have been camped out in police stations and community centres since the onset of the violence in the middle of May, many more have fled back to their homeland.

Nomfundo Mogapi, a programme manager for the Johannesburg-based Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, said the numbers 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.

At least 30,000 had been forced out of their homes in Johannesburg, 20,000 in the Cape Town 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 the community centres to return back to their shacks, many of which were burned to the ground.

"It's only a very few that are going back, because they are very afraid," said Mogapi.

 

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