Soaring rates of crime, unemployment, and corruption were among the triggers for a murderous burst of violent attacks over 10 days against Zimbabweans and other immigrants that left dozens dead in South African’s main city of Johannesburg, and 6,000 other
Mobs beat foreigners and set some ablaze in scenes reminiscent of apartheid-era violence. “Poor and ineffective governance created a tinder box of unmet expectations which exploded in Alexandra and has now spread to several other areas,” the South Africa Institute of Race Relations said in a letter. “Essentially these failures contributed to create a perfect storm of lawlessness, poverty, and unfulfilled expectations which has now erupted into violence.”
As many as three million Zimbabweans are thought to be in South Africa, having fled violence and poverty at home. President Thabo Mbeki, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela all condemned the violent attacks.
A letter signed by Siphamandla Gumbi of United Cities and Local Government of Africa read: “The government of South Africa must use all its powers to stop this un- African behavior by people who have lost all sense of ubuntu, which says strangers are always welcomed with open arms, treated with respect and protected in an African home.”
An estimated five million people from almost every country in Africa have migrated to South Africa; three million of these are thought to be Zimbabwean, but the Department of Home Affairs has no record of how many migrants might be undocumented.
“We are killing each other. Black against Black, brother against brother,” wrote a Malawian accountant on the BBC website. “The trouble is the influx of millions of Zimbabweans. Only a political solution to the crisis in Zimbabwe will solve this problem.”
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