DREADFUL "necklace" killings made notorious by Winnie Mandela returned to South Africa for the first time in nearly two decades as the slaughter of foreigners continued yesterday in poor black communities dotted around Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town.
In a new and serious tribal development, Zulu and Xhosa mobs began attacking fellow South Africans from the smaller Shangaan and Venda tribes.
The black-on-black ethnic cleansing frenzy has so far taken at least 23 lives, leaving countless hundre
ds wounded and raped and many thousands homeless. The death toll is certain to rise as bodies are recovered and as others succumb to their injuries.
Zimbabweans have been the main target of attacks by South Africans who claim the foreigners are taking their jobs, houses and women in a country where the unemployment rate tops 40 per cent. Some three million Zimbabweans have fled into South Africa and they continue to arrive in their tens of thousands each day.
But Mozambican and Malawian economic migrants are also being targeted. In Cape Town mobs are attacking and killing Somali traders and burning their shops.
In the early 1990s necklacing was the barbaric method used in black townships to kill suspected police informers. Victims had a car tyre jammed over their shoulders. It was then filled with petrol and set ablaze.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu yesterday issued an impassioned appeal from his Cape Town home for the killing to stop. He said: "These are our sisters and brothers. Please, please stop."
The full article contains 257 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
