JOHANNESBURG: Failure to spread South Africa’s economic gains to the poor has fuelled violence against immigrants and could spark wider unrest as living conditions become tougher and higher food prices bite.

More than 14 years after the end of apartheid, millions are still trapped in poverty despite record economic growth averaging five per cent in the past four years.

Living in squalor in Johannesburg’s shantytowns, the poor have taken their anger out on immigrants, killing 42 people, mostly targeting Zimbabweans and Mozambicans.

“We are sitting on a (time bomb). People are poor. They don’t have jobs or decent housing and they are sick and tired of it. It’s at a point where it is easy for anybody to incite violence,” said Prince Mashele, analyst at the Institute for Security Studies.

The government of President Thabo Mbeki rejects suggestions that policy failures are behind the xenophobia, pointing to increasing access to electricity and housing and the expansion of welfare grants to 12.5 million people. It blames criminals.

“If you say the issue is about poverty then what you would have in the rest of the African continent is nothing but this,” said Essop Pahad, one of Mbeki’s closest advisers.

About 3 million Zimbabweans, fleeing the collapse of their own country’s economy, make up the biggest group of 5 million migrants in a population of 50 million.

Even officials say the Zimbabweans are generally better educated than many poor South Africans, who accuse migrants from neighbouring countries of stealing scarce jobs.

The attacks have centred on the province of Gauteng, heart of Africa’s biggest economy but also where the starkest inequalities are on display.

The slum of Alexandra, where the violence first erupted, lies in the shadows of Johannesburg’s northern suburban mansions where many of the super-rich reside.

Analysts say mounting instability is in store if the plight of the poor is not rapidly improved.

—Reuters