By Sapa and own correspondents
"Please, please stop."
This was the message on Monday from Nobel Peace Laureate and struggle icon Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu in the wake of the outburst of xenophobic violence of the past few days.
"Please stop. Please stop the violence now," the churchman said in an impassioned statement.
'We are disgracing our struggle heroes' "This is not how we behave. These are our sisters and brothers. Please, please stop."
Tutu, who once intervened in the apartheid years to prevent a mob necklacing a man, said that when South Africans were fighting against apartheid they had been supported by people around the world, and particularly in Africa.
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Although they were poor, other Africans welcomed South Africans as refugees, and allowed liberation movements to have bases in their territory, even if it meant those countries were going to be attacked by the then South African Defence Force.
"We can't repay them by killing their children. We can't disgrace our struggle by these acts of violence," he said.
"It is as if we were back in the days of the necklace.
'Our children will condemn us in the future' "The world is shocked and is going to laugh at us and mock us. We are disgracing our struggle heroes. Our children will condemn us in the future."
As the xenophobic attacks continued across Gauteng, police stepped up a gear and a disaster management system was unveiled in the latest attempt to quell the violence, now in its ninth day.
The official death toll is 22 - with at least seven people confirmed dead in the violence on Sunday and yesterday. More than 240 have been arrested.
On Monday, the battle to contain the violence continued, with incidents reported in Kya Sands, Reiger Park, Primrose and at Joburg's Bree Street taxi rank, among others.
Businesses in Joburg - run by foreigners, or people who perceived they would be considered foreigners, closed as fear of further looting spread.
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