South Africans warned of Mozambique retaliation

Laos News.Net
Saturday 24th May, 2008

South Africans in neighbouring Mozambique are fleeing the country and Mozambican authorities are on high alert amid fears of retaliation for the xenophobic violence against Mozambicans in South Africa.

The Afrikaans daily Beeld has reported that thousands of South African tourists were streaming over the border-post at Ressano Garcia.

The Mozambican government was reported to have ascribed this to a precautionary measure against the possibility that Mozambicans could turn against them in the aftermath of the xenophobic violence that has wracked South Africa in the past fortnight.

Orlando Cossa, Mozambique's head of immigration said: "Where the normal traffic for returning South Africans over the border is about 100 vehicles daily, in the past four days this has risen to up to 600 per day."

South African authorities confirmed that a far greater number of South Africans had also been coming back at the Lebombo border post with Mozambique.

Expectations increased that an equal number of vehicles would cross into both countries this weekend, with busloads of Mozambicans who had sought refuge or work in South Africa headed home.

Mozambican authorities are expecting that over 10,000 of their citizens are on their way home, while a South African working in Mozambique said there was increasing anger against his compatriots there by locals.

The source who preferred to remain anonymous said Mozambicans were "sick of the TV images about the violence that is being broadcast here."

He said he expected that locals would "wreak vengeance on all that is South African".

These fears were confirmed by Mozambican police spokesman Arnaldo Chefo, who told Beeld that they had received hundreds of telephone calls from angry Mozambicans threatening revenge attacks on South African businesses' in the capital, Maputo.

Many South African businesses have been active in Mozambique as the economy there began growing again after two decades of civil war following independence from Portugal.

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