Cape Town - The recent attacks on foreign shopowners in Gauteng are shameful and outrageous, the SA Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) said on Monday.
“Despite attempts to characterise these xenophobic attacks as criminal in nature they are clearly hate crimes and must be treated as such,” SAJBD spokeswoman Charisse Zeifert said.
It was repugnant that people were being deprived of their livelihoods simply because they were born in a different country, the board said.
The SAJBD had set up a fund to help the victims.
Somali shopowner Alodixashi Sheik Yusuf appeared in the Protea Magistrate's Court on Monday morning. He is accused of shooting dead Siphiwe Mahori, 14, in Snake Park, Soweto, last Monday. He allegedly fired at a group of people trying to rob his shop.
The shooting sparked a wave of looting of foreign-owned shops, which spread from Soweto to Kagiso on the West Rand and Sebokeng in the Vaal, causing several deaths, including a baby.
The Star reported that Zanele Majozi, 19, was allegedly running out of a vandalized shop in Kagiso with a bottle of cooldrink, with her month-old baby Nqobile strapped to her chest. People noticed blood on her top, where his face had been resting, and his hand facing the wrong way round. When she unstrapped him she saw he was dead.
Thirty alleged looters were due to appear in the Protea Magistrate's Court on Monday, on charges including possession of stolen goods and public violence.
Sapa