South African soldiers shot and killed a man in a slum area east of Johannesburg during operations to support police to quell anti-immigrant violence, an army spokesman said yesterday.
“We unfortunately had an incident where a member of the public was shot when he pointed a firearm at a soldier. He was shot dead,” army spokesman General Kwena Mangope said.
The incident happened on Friday at about 6pm in the East Rand area.
Meanwhile, thousands forced from their homes by anti-foreigner violence in South Africa are now reportedly threatened by disease in makeshift camps, and some immigrants said on Friday they felt safer hiding in open fields.
Neighboring Mozambique declared a state of emergency to free government funds for citizens fleeing attacks. South African police reported sporadic violence — but no deaths — across the country on Friday, leaving scores more homeless.
The situation in and around Johannesburg where the worst violence broke out was calmer on Friday. But aid workers say there are now fears about the spread of disease among the thousands who have taken shelter from the winter cold in police stations, churches and other temporary camps.
Cape Town police spokesman Billy Jones said about 400 people had sought shelter on a motor racetrack after 12 people were injured in overnight attacks on an informal settlement in Cape Town.
“The area is quiet now but we are maintaining a visible presence,” he said, adding that many of the displaced had been moved to various community centers and town halls.
At least 42 people have been killed in the violence and more than 25,000 foreigners displaced since attacks began earlier this month by South Africans who blame immigrants for crime and unemployment. More than 500 arrests have been made.
Bianca Tolboom, a nurse with the international aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres, said camps were overcrowded and there was concern about access to clean drinking water.
“Some people have been staying in the open air with not sufficient blankets, so now the main medical concerns are respiratory tract infections and diarrhea,” she said.
Thabo Masebe, spokesman for Gauteng Province, which includes Johannesburg, said authorities were identifying land where tents could be erected as temporary shelters.
Predicting an escalating “exodus,” Mozambique Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi said the state of emergency had been declared on Thursday night as thousands of Mozambicans flooded across the border.
Baloi said about 10,000 people had returned on their own while 620 people arrived in the Mozambican capital on Thursday in buses arranged by the consulate in Johannesburg.
The Mozambican government has released money and aid to help those returning. They are being assisted with transport to their home towns as well as clothes, food, blankets and basic cooking implements.
Police and prosecutors said “extraordinary” plans were being put in place to deal with cases “strongly and speedily.”
They said cases were being treated with high priority and special teams would ensure cases were brought to court quickly.
Prosecutors said the attacks were “unacceptable and violent” and that it “trusts the courts will deal with these cases with the full might of the law, to send a strong message that condemns this criminal behavior.”
Human Rights Watch, however, said courts have already dropped several cases because of a lack of evidence and called on South Africa not to deport any victims while their cases were pending.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS