Emmerson Ziso fled hunger and repression in neighboring Zimbabwe, but now he wants to go back.
Even his violent, chaotic homeland seems a haven compared with Johannesburg, where weekend attacks on foreigners left 12 dead.
“Most of the Zimbabweans want to leave. It is better at home than here,” said the former teacher, who was chased out of his home by a mob early Sunday.
PHOTO: EPA
“It’s spreading like wildfire and the police and the army can’t control it,” Ziso said as he tried to help register about 500 people who sought refuge at the police station in Johannesburg’s Cleveland area.
It was a scene repeated in other poor suburbs around the city.
Angry residents accused foreigners — many of them Zimbabweans who had fled their own country’s economic collapse — of taking scarce jobs and housing.
South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Sunday that he would set up a panel of experts to investigate. African National Congress President Jacob Zuma, who is likely to succeed Mbeki next year, condemned the attacks.
“We cannot allow South Africa to be famous for xenophobia,” Zuma told a conference in Pretoria.
The weekend attacks come as the government tries to change South Africa’s violent image ahead of the 2010 World Cup. South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world, recording an average of 50 murders each day.
Many in the ANC government took refuge in neighboring countries during apartheid and are deeply embarrassed by the current violence, which has targeted immigrants who came to South Africa from other nations in the region.
Police spokesman Govindsamy Mariemuthoo said 12 people were killed. He said 200 people had been arrested on charges from rape to robbery and public violence.
The Red Cross said at least 3,000 people were left destitute.
Police said the worst violence erupted after midnight on Saturday in Cleveland and other run-down inner city areas that are home to many immigrants. Two of the victims were burned and three others beaten to death. More than 50 were taken to hospitals with gunshot and stab wounds.
Photographs supplied by local newspapers captured horrific images of a man who was set on fire after a tire soaked in gasoline was put around his neck. There was no immediate word on his condition.
One of the demonstrators in Cleveland, Michael Khondwane, said foreigners were to blame for South Africa’s drug and crime scourge. He said the violence would send them “the message that they must go.”
Johannesburg is South Africa’s economic hub and home to hundreds of thousands of immigrants. Many of them are illegal, but many have also been here for more than a decade and possess South African identity documents.
There has been sporadic anti-foreigner violence for months, mainly aimed at stores run by Somalis accused of undercutting local storeowners.
Eric Goemaere, the head of Medecins Sans Frontieres in South Africa, said his staff was helping to treat people with bullet wounds and back injuries from being thrown out of windows. He called on the South African government to declare Zimbabweans as refugees and give them proper protection.
“It’s a crisis,” he said.
There are believed to be up to 3 million Zimbabweans living in South Africa who have fled the economic and political turmoil in their homeland.
Massive inflation, food and fuel shortages have sent increasing numbers of Zimbabweans to South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and Namibia in search of business and basic commodities.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday expressed concern about “the political crisis” in Georgia, two days after Mikheil Kavelashvili was formally inaugurated as president of the South Caucasus nation, cementing the ruling party’s grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia. “We strongly condemn last week’s violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders, and recall Georgian authorities’ responsibility to respect human rights and protect fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to assembly and media freedom,” the three ministers wrote in a joint statement. In reaction
BARRIER BLAME: An aviation expert questioned the location of a solid wall past the end of the runway, saying that it was ‘very bad luck for this particular airplane’ A team of US investigators, including representatives from Boeing, on Tuesday examined the site of a plane crash that killed 179 people in South Korea, while authorities were conducting safety inspections on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines. All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air died in Sunday’s crash. Video showed the aircraft, without its landing gear deployed, crash-landed on its belly and overshoot a runaway at Muan International Airport before it slammed into a barrier and burst into flames. The plane was seen having engine trouble.
REVELRY ON HOLD: Students marched in Belgrade amid New Year’s events, saying that ‘there is nothing to celebrate’ after the train station tragedy killed 15 Thousands of students marched in Belgrade and two other Serbian cities during a New Year’s Eve protest that went into yesterday, demanding accountability over the fatal collapse of a train station roof in November. The incident in the city of Novi Sad occurred on Nov. 1 at a newly renovated train facility, killing 14 people — aged six to 74 — at the scene, while a 15th person died in hospital weeks later. Public outrage over the tragedy has sparked nationwide protests, with many blaming the deaths on corruption and inadequate oversight of construction projects. In Belgrade, university students marched through the capital
RSS