Xenophobia violence claims 2 lives in South Africa

Two foreigners were murdered in northwest South Africa on Friday in the latest case of xenophobia attacks, authorities said. The two victims from Bangladesh, aged 26 and 27, were killed in their shop in Manama Kgotheng village near Mogwase, North West Province, provincial officials said. Their bodies were discovered by local customers Friday morning. Police officers who arrived later reportedly found a hammer next to the bodies of the two men. They found no signs of forced entry. North West Province Premier Thandi Modise urged police not to leave any stone unturned until those responsible for the murder are arrested. "We are saddened and shocked by this incident which we wish to condemn in the strongest terms possible these brutal murders. We call on our communities to assist police with information that might lead to the speedy arrest of the heartless criminals responsible for these ghastly acts," said Modise. Attacks on foreigners are not uncommon in South Africa. On average, one person was killed in xenophobia violence every week in 2011, according to the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants. Several places like Gauteng and Eastern Cape Provinces recently witnessed spates of violence against foreigners, including refugees and asylum-seekers, particularly Somalis whose shops were attacked and looted. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has voiced concerns over recent attacks on foreigners in South Africa. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) attributes xenophobia to the apartheid regime's deliberate strategy to destroy the economic infrastructure of South Africa's neighboring countries and to support counter-revolutionary movements in order to destabilize them. As a result some of these countries today still face huge problems of underdevelopment and poverty and there has been a constant stream of economic refugees into South Africa, looking for an escape from poverty, the national union federation says, adding that these economic refuges compete with the millions of unemployed South Africans for too few jobs, giving rise to tensions between the locals and foreigners.