REIGER PARK, South Africa — Clashes pitting the poorest of the poor against one another have killed 22 people in South Africa and underscored bitter frustration with the government’s failure to deliver enough jobs, housing and schools.
Police brought in reinforcements as violence hopped from slum to slum in scenes reminiscent of some of the bloodiest days of apartheid. Most of the victims have been immigrants from Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa living in squatter camps.
Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu made an impassioned plea Monday for the violence to end. “Please stop the violence now,” he said in a statement. “These are our sisters and brothers.”
Tutu said that when South Africans were fighting apartheid, they were supported by people worldwide. “We can’t repay them by killing their children,” he said. “We can’t disgrace our struggle by these acts of violence.”
South Africans are struggling to buy food as prices rise amid stubbornly high unemployment, and many complain the government hasn’t worked fast enough to build houses, schools and hospitals for the black majority. Foreigners were attacked because they are seen as competing for scarce resources — and because they were the closest targets at hand for the poor.
Leyton Salaman, a 35-year-old tiler from Malawi, said the trouble started slowly in Ramaphosa, a collection of shacks east of Johannesburg. A few foreigners were beaten Friday, then shacks were set afire. When the killing started Sunday, Salaman and hundreds of others fled to nearby Reiger Park, where he sat in a church yard Monday.
“These people, they said, ‘You are taking our jobs,’ ” said Salaman, an eight-year resident of South Africa. “Now they just come and take our things.”
A police spokesman said 22 people had been killed since last week, and more than 200 people were arrested on murder, rape and robbery charges.
