PRETORIA: South Africa on Sunday vowed to hunt down those behind a wave of attacks targeting immigrants, saying 307 people had been arrested over violence that has left at least seven people dead.

The government stepped up its response to unrest in Johannesburg and the eastern coastal city of Durban, with Home Minister Malusi Gigaba resolving to end “all acts that seek to plunge our country into anarchy”.

Rioting and looting over the last two weeks have exposed tensions between South Africans and immigrants from across the continent, including Zimbabwe, Somalia, Ethiopia and Malawi.

President Jacob Zuma on Saturday cancelled a state visit to Indonesia to deal with surge in violence, and pleaded with foreigners to stay in South Africa.

Heightening public concern over the attacks, the Sunday Times published front-page pictures of a Mozambican man being stabbed to death in broad daylight in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra.

The photographs showed Emmanuel Sithole being attacked early on Saturday by a man in jeans wielding a knife. Sithole was taken to hospital but died of his wounds, the paper reported.

“Perpetrators are being arrested, charged and prosecuted,” Gigaba told a press conference in Pretoria.

“So far 307 suspects have been arrested in connection with attacks on foreign nationals and public violence.

“We want to issue a stern warning to those who lend themselves to acts of public violence. We will find you — and you will be dealt with to the full might of the law. “Sporadic violence erupted again overnight in Johannesburg and Durban, where a photographer said that one Zimbabwean’s house had been petrol-bombed and his two cars torched.

The spate of attacks has revived memories of xenophobic bloodshed in 2008, when 62 people were killed in Johannesburg’s townships, shaking South Africa’s post-apartheid image as a “rainbow nation” of different ethnic groups.

Immigrants are often the focus for anger among South Africans hit by a chronic job shortage and the limited progress made by many poor blacks since white-minority rule ended in 1994.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2015

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