Anti-Immigrant Violence Spreads Like Wildfire in South Africa

The N.Y Times reports on some scary events this weekend in Johannesberg, South Africa, a nation that has struggled to overcome the legacy of racial apartheid:

"Violence against immigrants, like some windswept fire, spread across one neighborhood after another here in one of South Africa’s main cities this weekend, and the police said the mayhem left at least 12 people dead — beaten by mobs, shot, stabbed or burned alive.

Thousands of panicked foreigners — many of them Zimbabweans who have fled their own country’s economic collapse — have now deserted their ramshackle dwellings and tin-walled squatter hovels to take refuge in churches and police stations.

This latest outbreak of xenophobia began a week ago in the historic township of Alexandra and has since spread to other areas in and around Johannesburg, including Cleveland, Diepsloot, Hilbrow, Tembisa, Primrose, Ivory Park and Thokoza."

The Times shows a picture of a policeman using a fire extinguisher to try to save a man who had been set on fire by an anti-immigrant mob.

KJ