S. Africa race violence spreads

S.AFRICA: Mob attacks against foreigners in South Africa spread to the east coast city of Durban Wednesday as elite police units managed to rein in the violence that has so far left 24 dead in Johannesburg.

While Johannesburg enjoyed its quietest night after nearly a week of assaults, looting and rapes, the outbreak of violence in Durban indicated that anger towards African immigrants who have moved to the continent's economic powerhouse is not merely confined to the country's biggest city.

Superintendent Phindile Radebe, police spokeswoman in the eastern KwaZulu Natal province, said that a Nigerian-owned business had been one of the targets of a mob in Durban's impoverished suburb of Umbilo.

"A mob of plus/minus 200 were gathering on the streets carrying bottles and knobkerries (wooden clubs) busy attacking people on the streets," she told AFP.

"They attacked one of the taverns there believed to be owned by Nigerians." The Durban-based Mercury newspaper reported Umbilo police spokesman Captain John Lazarus as saying the mob had ordered the foreigners to "leave KwaZulu Natal", the country's most populous province.

Johannesburg, Wednesday, AFP