‘Wives leave husbands behind…’

. As xenophobic attacks continue in South Africa

FEARFUL immigrants in South Africa who fled their homes because of threats and deadly attacks by South Africans said Sunday they were targeted in some cases by longtime neighbours, and people who warned they would assault anyone carrying a foreign passport.

The immigrants spoke in interviews with The Associated Press at a tent camp after they hurriedly left Alexandra township in Johannesburg, where mobs attacked shops owned by people from other African countries, including Congo and Somalia.

The violence there followed anti-immigrant riots in and around the coastal city of Durban that killed at least six people, recalling a bout of similar unrest in South Africa in 2008 in which about 60 people died.

South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper printed photographs of an attack in Alexandra on a Mozambican man, identified as Emmanuel Sithole, who reportedly died after being beaten and stabbed early Saturday.

A nearby clinic could not help Sithole because the doctor was a foreigner who did not go to work, fearing for his own safety, the newspaper reported.

The message from the mobs in Alexandra was, “We don’t want to see people with passports. We only want to see people with South African IDs,” said Veronica Lechaea, who comes from the southern African country of Lesotho and has lived in South Africa since 2008. Lechaea, who works as an office cleaner in Johannesburg, left her home in Alexandra and sought refuge in a camp set up on the grounds of an Anglican church by Gift of the Givers, a South African charity.

She said she makes about $250 a month and sends half of the money home to Lesotho to support her 12-year-old son, who is living there with his grandparents.

The attacks stem from a perception that immigrants are taking jobs at the expense of South Africans in a country with high unemployment. Many people from other countries have entered South Africa illegally, though the government has said a large number are working legally and contributing to economic development.

“Some African countries are arranging to repatriate their fearful citizens, and there have been protests and calls in Malawi, Zimbabwe and other regional nations for a boycott of South African goods. South Africa has one of the biggest economies on the continent, and it was unclear whether any boycott would have a significant impact”. Immigrants from Asia and the Middle East have also been affected by the violence in South Africa.

Sandra Ngwanya, a chicken seller from Zimbabwe who also left her Alexandra home for the Gift of the Givers camp, said her neighbours told her: “We are going to go door to door, taking your stuff and beating you. So we want you to go back to your country.”

Ngwanya, who has lived in South Africa since 2006 and married a South African, said she left her two young children with cousins and hoped to go home soon.

“They are saying it’s quiet. The police are all over the place. I want to go and check on our stuff,” said Ngwanya, whose husband works in a mine outside Johannesburg and planned to return to check on his family.

However, some people at the camp said the situation remained volatile.

“These people start in the night. In the day, it’s fine,” Nora Ngohveni, a Mozambican, said in a reference to the mobs. She spoke while sitting with her six-year-old daughter, Sandra, on a mattress in a tent.

About 20 people are staying at the Gift of the Givers camp, though organizer Emily Thomas said more people were expected to arrive from another camp that was set up outside Johannesburg.

The South African government has provided food, shelter and other necessities to more than 1,000 people in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, which include Johannesburg and Durban respectively, authorities said in a statement. Police have arrested 307 suspects during the riots, and some people have used social media to spread fear, the statement said.

“They have been sending out fictitious SMS and WhatsApp messages with fictitious and photo-shopped images warning people of imminent attacks,” the government said.

Some immigrants at the Johannesburg camp attended a service in the red-brick building of Christ Church, which provided space for their shelter.

Rev. Bikitsha Njzumba led the congregation in prayer for those who died in the anti-immigrant violence as well as their families. Another reverend, Eve Abrahams, told the immigrants: “Just know that you’re safe here.”