“Rainbow nation� xenophobia | The Wider Image South Africa deployed the army on Tuesday in "volatile areas" to curb a wave of anti-immigrant violence that has killed at least seven people this month, the defence minister said. The latest wave of anti-immigrant attacks began almost three weeks ago in parts of the coastal city of Durban in Kwa-Zulu Natal and quickly spread to Johannesburg, South Africa's commercial capital. South African men run from police as rioting and looting was quelled during anti-foreigner violence in Durban. At least seven people have been killed in the latest wave of anti-immigrant violence to hit South Africa, which began almost three weeks ago in Durban, a coastal city in the Zulu heartland. TV stations across the country have broadcast scenes of angry mobs armed with machetes looting immigrant-owned shops, in the worst xenophobic violence since at least 67 people were killed in 2008. Men from Malawi queue to board buses from a camp for those affected by anti-immigrant violence in Chatsworth north of Durban. According to census data, South Africa has an estimated 1.7 million foreigners living within its borders, but many claim the figure to be much higher. Although one of the continent's economic powerhouses, the country is nonetheless grappling with high unemployment, poor services and crime. A foreign man bathes near a camp for those affected by the violence. Thousands of immigrants from countries including Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique have fled to refugee camps as a result of the violence. Police officers gesture after firing rubber bullets to disperse African immigrants who were carrying machetes. President Jacob Zuma and his colleagues in the ANC, the anti-apartheid party once led by late Nelson Mandela, have condemned the violence and urged South Africans not to vent their frustrations at foreigners. But many experts believe it is the failure of the ANC to alleviate poverty and redistribute wealth since the end of white-minority rule twenty years ago that is the root cause of the unrest. The violence is tarnishing South Africa's post-apartheid image as a home for the oppressed, encapsulated by Mandela's vision of a unified "Rainbow Nation". The damage is worse as thousands of South Africans took refuge in the same countries seeking help now, when they endured decades of violence under white-minority apartheid government. "(We are) witnessing hate crimes on a par with the worst that apartheid could offer," said a statement on the xenophobic attacks from the foundation of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa's Nobel Peace Prize winner.
"Our rainbow nation that so filled the world with hope is being reduced to a grubby shadow of itself." A child from Zimbabwe waits for a bus to depart for Harare from a camp for those affected by the violence. African governments, including those of Zimbabwe and Malawi, repatriated hundreds of their citizens from South Africa last week due to fears of further xenophobic attacks. https://widerimage.reuters.com/story/rainbow-nation-xenophobia