His legs soaked in blood and with scorch marks running down his back, the young man is lifted on to a makeshift stretcher after another bout of deadly violence in South Africa’s so-called City of Gold.
His eyes blink, filled with tears, as he shudders slightly and tries to move before police calm him down and say he is now out of danger from the baying mob that had attacked in one of Johannesburg’s teeming townships.
”I saw him riding on his bicycle and then he was attacked by the mob,” said a woman in the Reiger Park township, too frightened to gave her name.
”He’s been here, just lying on the ground, for ages.”
The victim, who was too traumatised by his beating to give his name, was just one of dozens of victims of an orgy of violence on a scale not seen since the dog days of the whites-only apartheid regime, when followers of the Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party clashed with supporters of the now ruling African National Congress.
According to the police, at least 22 people have now been killed in township violence in and around Johannesburg since last week. Several hundred more have either been attacked or lost their possessions in attacks on their homes.
The violence has been confined to townships and downtown Johannesburg, and deeply disturbing newspaper front pages showing images of a human fireball have illustrated the levels of hatred that are fuelling the attacks.
Few residents of Reiger Park were prepared to speak to reporters, but one laid the blame firmly at the feet of Zimbabwean refugees, up to three million of whom are now believed to be in South Africa to escape the economic meltdown in their homeland.
”All these things are the fault of the Zimbabweans. They should just go,” said the woman, who only gave her first name, Noxolo.
The Zimbabweans have been widely blamed in the impoverished townships for taking jobs in a country where nearly four out of 10 of the workforce are unemployed, and for the sky-high levels of crime.
The financial capital of the economic powerhouse of Africa, Johannesburg has long been a magnet for people across the continent.
As well as the Zimbabwean exiles, large numbers of immigrants from countries such as Mozambique, Nigeria, Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo have swelled the city’s overall population at a time when the government is struggling to meet its commitments to move people out of metal shacks.
While the immediate target of the attacks appeared to be foreigners, many South Africans have been caught up in the violence, which politicians fear is now well out of control.
Even some township inhabitants feel the attacks are no longer solely directed at immigrants.
”It’s not just foreigners. The owner of that container is a [South African] coloured guy and they opened it and stole everything,” said another Reiger Park resident, Bongani, pointing out an empty container lying on its side in the street.
A quick assessment of the damage in Reiger Park on Monday morning saw large swathes of housing flattened and fires still littering streets covered in makeshift barricades.
Police attempting to bring calm to the violence-ridden township were mostly greeted with jeers and stones but some residents hoped they would be successful in restoring order.
Bongani has mixed feelings towards the police who are trying to restore order.
”I’m glad the police are here, but they shot me in the leg. I was standing in my own yard and they shot me for no reason,” he said. — AFP
