Four South African men accused of stabbing a Mozambican man to death in an anti-immigrant attack in a Johannesburg township appeared in court today.
The brutal murder of Emmanuel Sithole was captured on camera and shocking images show men stabbing him and beating him with a wrench.
Continue reading after the cut.....
Anti-immigrant violence has spread across South Africa in recent weeks and the government has now sent in troops to control the riots.
The brutal attack on Mr Sithole in Alexandra township near Johannesburg on Saturday was captured on camera by a local journalist and published across the world the following day.
They show the four men surrounding the Mozambican man, before repeatedly stabbing him with knives and bludgeoning him with a wrench in broad daylight.
Witnesses took Mr Sithole to a nearby medical centre but found it was closed because the foreign-born duty doctor had failed to turn up for his shift for fear of being attacked by the xenophobic hordes rampaging through the township.
Mr Sithole was taken to hospital where he later died, the cause of death was established as a direct stab wound to the heart.
The four men accused of his murder will remain in custody until a full trial, set to be held on May 4th.
The South African army has been deployed to areas that remain volatile after a spate of attacks targeting immigrants, the defense minister announced on Tuesday.
Soldiers have already been sent to support police in troubled areas, Defense Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said in a live broadcast.
The minister made the announcement in Alexandra, a Johannesburg township where a Zimbabwean couple survived a shooting overnight.
The man and woman were both shot in their necks and the woman suffered an additional shot in her leg, the minister said. Both Zimbabweans were treated and discharged from hospital.
Troops have also been sent to Durban, the coastal city where the attacks on foreigners began, Mapisa-Nqakula said.
The violence has been concentrated in areas of Johannesburg and Durban where poor immigrants and South Africans live.
The recent spate of attacks has mainly affected immigrants from African states like Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, according to a statement from the aid group, Doctors Without Borders
The South African attacks on foreigners have angered many in other African countries.
In Malawi, nearly 2,000 protesters marched to the South African High Commission, demonstrating against the wave of violence, said Billy Mayaya, a human rights activist. A diplomat at the South African mission said earlier that there were several hundred marchers.
'South Africa, why kill your fellow blacks?' read one poster carried by the singing demonstrators in the capital Lilongwe.
The march organizers called on the South African government to do more to protect immigrants and handed a petition to South African High Commissioner Cassandra Mbuyane-Mokone.
Nearly 400 Malawians returned home on Monday, travelling overnight by bus from South Africa, Malawi's Information Minister Kondwani Nankhumwa said.
Drop a comment....thanks!
No comments:
Post a Comment