SOUTH AFRICA:THE XENOPHOBIC violence that has plagued Johannesburg for the past 11 days and left at least 42 people dead has spread to the port city of Durban where Nigerians have been attacked in one of the townships.
Although a Gauteng provincial official said the violence against foreigners living in informal settlements around Johannesburg appeared to have subsided yesterday, media reports from Durban described how a Nigerian-owned bar was attacked by a 150-strong mob on Tuesday night.
Provincial police spokeswoman Phindile Radebe said a large group of people had gathered on some streets of the Umbilo suburb before the violence erupted.
"Police went out and calmed the situation down and a case of public violence was opened - but no arrests were made," he said.
At least 100 hostel dwellers converged on the same suburb yesterday and ordered foreigners to leave the KwaZulu-Natal province.
The widespread violence against foreigners in South Africa has forced at least 13,000 people to flee their homes since it first began in the Alexander township, according to the first official displacement figures on the crisis by the UN's International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
"Thirteen thousand people had to flee their homes to seek refuge in churches and parish centres, and most didn't take anything with them," said IOM spokesperson Jean-Philippe Chauzy in Geneva.
An estimated five million foreign nationals from around the continent live and work in South Africa, and an estimated three million of them are Zimbabweans who have fled the rule of President Robert Mugabe.
It now appears that many are prepared to return to their country or origin.
Five buses arrived at the Primrose police station yesterday, where hundreds of foreigners have sought shelter, to take Mozambican foreigners home if they wanted to go. According to witnesses many Mozambicans lined up to board the buses.
Since the crisis began rumours of a "third force" co-ordinating the violence have grown, although who or what that force might be has yet to be established.
While condemning the violence yesterday, minister in the presidency Essop Pahad hinted at right-wing involvement in the unrest.
"We need to understand xenophobia has historically been used by right-wing populist movements to mobilise particularly the lumpen-proletariat against minority groups in society.
"Political mobilisation on the basis of xenophobia poses grave threats to progressive forces in our society," he said yesterday.
The veterans of the ANC's military wing from the anti-apartheid struggle also said yesterday the xenophobic attacks were politically motivated. "This is not just violence," said Peter Ngubeni, secretary of the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans' Association. "Because historically [some parties] have campaigned on a tribal basis . . . [the] only way to maintain some basis is to wage tensions in society."
Civil society groups will march to the Gauteng legislature and home affairs offices in solidarity with victims on Saturday.