Mozambique said five of its nationals were killed in “xenophobic attacks” in South Africa at the weekend and efforts were underway Tuesday to repatriate hundreds of others. AFP reports
The South African police however only confirmed two Mozambicans had died in violence in the southern coastal town of Mossel Bay, the first killings to be officially linked to a new wave of anti-migrant protests sweeping the country.
A South African teenager was also killed, police said, with reports that dozens of shacks were torched, some while people were still in them.
Protests against undocumented foreign nationals have been mounting in South Africa in recent weeks, leading Ghana to evacuate around 300 of its citizens last week, with Nigeria also announcing repatriations.
The Mozambique government’s media office said in a statement late Monday that seven Mozambican citizens died after violence broke out on Friday in Mossel Bay, about 380 kilometres (235 miles) east of Cape Town.
Five deaths were “a direct consequence of the xenophobic attacks and the other two as a result of a road accident, when they were travelling in a private vehicle on their way back to Mozambique”, it said.