More Deaths as South Africa Xenophobic Attacks Escalate

Attacks on African migrants in and around the city of Johannesburg, Gauteng, escalated Monday with increased incidences of mob beatings, lootings, rapes and arson attacks. Local police, who have declared the attacks criminal, battled the mobs with rubber bullets in the affected townships. President Thabo Mbeki, ruling party leader Jacob Zuma, former President Nelson Mandela and Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu have condemned the attacks, which have mostly been targeted at Zimbabweans and Mozambicans, who are the largest non-South African Black groups accused by locals of taking their jobs and fuelling crime. [P.E]