By Candice Bailey, Lynnette Johns and Mzwanele Mkalipi
Saturday, May 24, 2008
In Du Noon, South African Nosipho Cimi, 25, was clearing out a shop owned by her Congolese boyfriend. Hundreds of people watched as the store, a refurbished container which had been used as a hairdresser, a video outlet and a cellphone repair shop, was being cleared out.
Metro police were on hand to keep looters away and protect Cimi. She said: "This is so painful. My boyfriend doesn't know where to go. We didn't expect this. People like him came here, opened shops, offered services and employed us. They don't deserve to be treated like animals."
| 'These young men are either unemployed or too lazy to go to school' |
At another shop in Du Noon, the owner said: "We brought them a service, now they don't want it. Let this community now spend money to travel to buy furniture."
Looters taunted shop owners and attempted to get into shops while the police were there. Many appeared to be waiting for the police to leave while others said they would come back when it was dark.
Patrick Ngcani, chairperson of the Khayelitsha Sanco, blamed the violence on young men. "These young men are either unemployed or too lazy to go to school."
In Du Noon a local woman who is married to a Nigerian man and whose property had been raided by locals, said the attacks were not xenophobic.
| 'The local people can't afford the higher prices so they buy from the Somalis' |
"The people are taking advantage. It's not xenophobia, it's just jealousy.
"The people have all our stuff in their houses. If police checked they would find black bags full of stuff. They came with empty black bags and emptied our shops."
At Killarney some foreigners begged the police to escort them back into the townships to fetch their belongings while hundreds of others prepared to be taken to the Summer Greens and Richwood community halls.
A Somali man pleaded with police: "The man I rent my shop from is saying that the people haven't broken into my shop but they will soon. He wants me to come get my stuff. I don't care about my life. It's over now anyway."
Nigerian businessman Frank More, 32, was also hopeless. "Everything I have worked for is gone. I want to fetch my business documents. If the people are hungry they need to tell the government and not us."
A woman who runs a soup kitchen in Khayelitsha said local shop owners were using the xenophobic attacks in Gauteng as an excuse to loot foreign-owned shops and drive their owners out. She said local shopkeepers had met on Thursday night and decided to bring in people to loot foreign shops. People would be given weapons such as axes and crowbars.
She said Somali shopkeepers had upset local shop owners because their prices were always lower. "The Somalis sell a two-litre bottle of cooking oil for R32 while the local shop owners sell it for R45.
"The Somali shop owners are doing a lot of business and keeping the prices down. The local people can't afford the higher prices so they buy from the Somalis. But now the residents are too scared to speak up for the Somalis as they will be targeted. These are unscrupulous businessmen taking advantage and the community is horrified by this."
She sympathised with the community, saying she understood that a lot of the attacks were linked to the economic situation and the recent increase in food prices. "People just can't afford to buy food. They have no money. They are starving."
Last year her soup kitchen fed about 100 people. This year they were feeding at least 250 people. "People are coming into the clinic and they cannot even afford to buy a bar of soap so they haven't washed their clothes or their bodies." Babies had not been bathed for six weeks and were encrusted with dirt and had rashes, she said.
Source: Cape Argus, May 24, 2008