Durban - Four people were killed and shops were looted and burnt as violence between residents and foreign nationals escalated in Durban.
Those killed include an Ethiopian, whose shop was petrol bombed last week, an African immigrant whose nationality was not immediately known and two South Africans, police spokesman Thulani Zwane said on Monday.
Police said 28 people have been arrested for looting and torching immigrants' shops and were due to appear in the Ntuzuma Magistrate’s Court.
“We received reports that some of the shops belonging to foreign nationals were looted and some of them were burnt down overnight,” Zwane said.
Hundreds of people have fled their homes since the violence broke out two weeks ago.
On Sunday night a mob set upon foreigners at KwaMashu’s A-Section hostel, and the township’s B- and D- sections. Several police vehicles that responded were stoned. Residents in neighbouring Avoca Hills reported they could hear screams, and what sounded like gunshots.
In Varsity Drive, Reservoir Hills, another mob, carrying sticks and grass cutters, attacked foreigners.
A resident said the mob was going to various tuckshops, owned by foreigners, and looting them.
The Public Order Policing Unit has had its numbers bolstered by additional members from units in Pretoria, Ulundi, Newcastle, Port Shepstone and Eastern Cape. This will help police attend to attacks throughout the province.
And on Monday the children displaced by the attacks did not go back to school.
In Chatsworth, they wandered around the grounds of the Westcliff Stadium where a makeshift camp was set up.
Snikiwe Sibanda had just returned from an Easter break in Zimbabwe with her 4-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son when they were attacked and forced out of their informal settlement home.
“We can’t even go back for their uniforms,” she said.
The Grade 4 child was a pupil at Malvern Primary School.
On Monday morning, he and about 20 others were gathered by early childhood development volunteer Musa Mathenjwa. Tasked by the ward council, Mathenjwa walked around the camp collecting children of school-going age for class.
“We have children from creche to primary school age here, I will just go over a few things with them and then we will try organise a way for them to go to school,” he said.
At the weekend national police commissioner, General Riah Phiyega, said police were working hard to stabilise the situation.
“Criminals have taken advantage and are terrorising the communities but… we have identified the instigators and we are effecting arrests,” she said in a walkabout in the affected areas on Friday.
KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner, Lieutenant-General Mmamonnye Ngobeni, is also sending reinforcements. “We once again discourage people from taking the law into their own hands and caution that those found breaking the law will be prosecuted,” she warned.
The ANC Youth League has also come out strongly against the attacks.
In a statement on Sunday, its eThekwini regional chairwoman, Amanda Bani, said: “The recent barbaric attacks against our fellow African foreign nationals are shameful to the extreme.”
More than 2 000 foreign-born residents, who had fled their communities because of violence, are staying in various temporary camps.
President Jacob Zuma has assigned the ministers of Home Affairs, Police and State Security to work with the provincial government to quell the violence.
Daily News and Reuters