About 200 people have looted shops owned by Somalis in Jeffreys Bay, following the alleged rape of a four-year-old girl, police said on Tuesday.
Police spokesperson Marianette Olivier said residents of the Ocean View and Tokyo Sexwale townships looted the shops and clashed with police.
Olivier said the crowd had pelted the police with stones, to which police responded by firing warning shots.
”Four police vehicles were damaged and one person was shot. He is in the Livingstone Hospital in Port Elizabeth,” Olivier said.
She said the Somalis fled to the Jeffreys Bay police station and that calm had now returned to the area.
She said the four-year-old girl and her mother were at the Uitenhage provincial hospital.
”The girl and her mother were taken to the hospital and at this stage I cannot say whether the girl was raped,” she said.
In May over 60 people were killed and 15 000 displaced in xenophobic attacks that rocked the country. – Sapa