Gangs rampaged through poor suburbs of Johannesburg in a series of attacks against foreigners,

A photographer for South Africa's The Star newspaper said he had witnessed a man being set alight in a slum in the East Rand region, about 50 kilometres east of Johannesburg, where violence spread on Sunday.
Gangs rampaged through poor suburbs of Johannesburg in a series of attacks against foreigners, mainly Zimbabweans, over the weekend, killing seven people, injuring at least 50 and forcing hundreds to seek refuge at police stations.
Two of those killed were burned to death and three beaten to death. The injured suffered gunshot and stab wounds. Johannesburg police were warning motorists to avoid the city's business district. "It's spreading like a wildfire and the police and the army can't control it," said Emmerson Zifo, a Zimbabwean. President Thabo Mbeki announced a panel had been set up to discover what lay behind the violence and the leader of the ruling ANC, Jacob Zuma, condemned the violence, warning that "we cannot be a xenophobic country". He said he could not understand how South Africans could be hostile to foreigners when the same foreign countries had given refuge to South Africans during the liberation struggle.The violence started last week in the old Alexandra shanty town. Those taking part in the attacks complained of the "theft" of jobs by foreigners. Zimbabweans have been flooding into South African in search of work following Robert Mugabe's destruction of the local economy.Twelve people have been killed in a wave of weekend violence against immigrants around Johannesburg, police said Sunday, with gangs of armed youths rampaging through poor areas in South Africa's economic capital.President Thabo Mbeki announced that a panel had been set up to look into the xenophobic attacks and the South African Red Cross said it had launched a appeal to help displaced people.
"Since Friday to now there have been 12 murders," provincial police communications director Govindsamy Mariemuthoo told AFP when asked about the troubles, which intensified over the weekend and spread to outlying areas.
Since the beginning of last week, foreigners have been targeted by mobs carrying machetes and guns in several run-down parts of the city despite pleas for calm and widespread condemnation from politicians.Local Johannesburg police spokeswoman Cheryl Engelbrecht told AFP that overnight violence in the inner city had left six dead, 50 people in hospital and a trail of looted shops and burnt cars.The bulk of the immigrants who have flooded South Africa in recent years are from neighbouring Zimbabwe, with an estimated three million having fled the economic meltdown and political crisis in their country.They have been particularly targeted as they are blamed by some locals for crime and unemployment. Some Zimbabweans say they are also accused of being behind rising food prices.
An AFP reporter saw armed police recover the dead body of a victim midafternoon in the notorious Hillbrow area of the inner city on Sunday. They fired dozens of rubber bullets to disperse gangs in the surrounding area.As well as the panel to look into the violence, Thabo Mbeki urged the police to act firmly against the perpetrators, the domestic news agency SAPA reported.
"We hope that the panel and the police will work together and help us answer who is behind this," he was quoted as saying.The head of the ruling African National Congress, Jacob Zuma, also condemned the violence.
"We cannot allow South Africa to be famous for xenophobia," Zuma said from Pretoria, SAPA reported. "We cannot be a xenophobic country."
He recalled the role neighbouring countries had played in sheltering ANC members in their fight against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa.
"We should be the last people to have this problem of having a negative attitude towards our brothers and sisters who come from outside," he said.Eric Goemaere, coordinator for humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in Johannesburg, said the violence had intensified on Sunday, with victims describing gangs of youths raiding their homes and looking for foreigners."The situation today is even more tense than during the week," he told AFP."They (victims) say there are organised gangs of 100 to 300 youths who are breaking into homes, apartments and shacks.""The violence is quite extreme: one woman was thrown out of a first floor window and fell on a car. There is an intention to kill."
"We found a guy wrapped up in his belongings. They'd obviously beaten him, wrapped him up, then set fire to him," Shayne Robinson told AFP, adding that gangs of up 300 youths had been confronting police.
In another incident on Sunday, a church where about 1,000 Zimbabweans were taking refuge was attacked, according to Goemaere, as well as a police station that was providing shelter to foreigners.
The acting secretary general of the South African Red Cross, David Stephens, said the organisation had launched a campaign to help victims of the attacks who have been forced to flee.
"We have made an appeal to the public to assist us to help people who are destitute," he said.
Engelbrecht said about 300 people, mainly immigrants, were sheltering in a police station in the inner-city Cleveland area of Johannesburg.
"A lot of foreign people have been attacked," she added. "Most of the damage has allegedly been done to property belonging to foreigners. A lot of shops have been broken into and several cars have been burnt."