attacks – praag.org

Foreigners targeted in Ledig violence

Irate residents of Ledig near the Sun City resort outside Rustenburg, refused to allow North West Local Government MEC Collen Maine to speak to them on Wednesday.

“We could not allow the MEC to speak. We agreed yesterday (Tuesday) that all arrested people must be released by 10am (Wednesday), before the MEC address us,” said community leader Pakaza Mdluli.

Residents have waged a week-long protest over alleged missing tribal funds. A number of protesters have been arrested during the protests which centre on the alleged mismanagement of some R527 million of tribal and community funds.

“The issue about DJ (Ditsele Phologoane, the chairman of the Bakubung Economic Development Unit) is not paramount. The key demand is for all arrested people to be released,” Mdluli said.

After the failed meeting, some residents chanted:” Phanzi Phologoane, Phanzi” (down Phologoane, down), and as some headed home, a group of youngsters went to barricade the road. The police fired rubber bullets to disperse them.

Some residents now fear the protests will soon spiral out of control.

” If this toyi-toyi does not end now, criminal elements would use it to advance their activities. People will be killed all in the name of protest,” said Eugene Ngima, 60.

He said parents were afraid to send children to school.

“Will we be proud if our children failed at the end of the school year?” he asked.

“This burning of houses and shops must end now before more people are hurt.”

A shop was burnt down on Tuesday night, at the Ledig small industry, another shop was torched at the weekend and four foreign-owned shops were looted.

Somalia, Malawi concerned about attacks on nationals

Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Premier Senzo Mchunu are to meet diplomats from African States in Durban Tuesday morning to discuss the wave of attacks on foreign nationals in the province.

King Goodwill Zwelithini met with the security cluster ministers in Durban Monday night to discuss the situation and the state of the country’s borders, including cross-border crime.

So far Malawi and Somalia are among the countries that have expressed concern about the plight of their nationals in KZN, but Zimbabwe has already indicated that the matter would carry no weight.

The Somali embassy said it was trying to trace its citizens and help them escape the violence. It has demanded urgent assistance from the Department of International Relations and Co-operation.

The Malawian government said it would be helping citizens living in South Africa to return to their homeland following the violence.

Both Gigaba and Mchunu are expected to assure the diplomats that the government is dealing with the situation of attacks on foreign nationals, which seems to continue in the province, threatening lives and stability.

Thus far, at least five people have been killed since the violence started. Thousands others have been displaced from their places of residence in various areas in the eThekwini municipality.

Businesses owned by foreign nationals have been destroyed and looted.

Meanwhile, more looting of shops has been reported overnight from KwaMashu and other townships in the Durban area. Thousands of foreigners displaced by earlier violence are being housed in three special camps in the area.

Some observers are blaming criminality rather than xenophobia for the looting. But political analyst, Protas Madlala, says economic hardships are a major contributing factor to attacks on foreign nationals.

Madlala says such incidents normally happen international in situations where the economy is very bad. He adds: “And the in-group, which in this case will be South Africans, attribute all their sufferings especially economic suffering and social suffering because there’s housing issues as well, they always attribute that kind of suffering to the outside group.”

Second French jihad attack as driver ploughs into pedestrians

A driver shouting “Allahu Akbar” ploughed into pedestrians in eastern France Sunday, injuring 11 of them, just a day after a man yelling the same words was killed in an attack on police officers.

Two of the people injured in the car attack in the city of Dijon were in a serious condition, a police source said, adding that the driver had been arrested.

France is still reeling from a suspected radical Islamic attack on Saturday that saw a French convert to Islam shot dead after attacking police officers with a knife while also reportedly crying “Allahu Akbar” in the central town of Joue-les-Tours.

The assailant, Burundi-born French national, Bertrand Nzohabonayo seriously injured two officers — slashing one in the face — and hurting another.

The 20-year-old attacker also cried “Allahu Akbar” during the assault, said a source close to the case speaking on condition of anonymity.

The assault prompted the government to step up security at police and fire stations nationwide.

The anti-terror branch of the Paris prosecutor’s office has opened a probe into that attack, with the line of inquiry focusing on whether it was motivated by radical Islam.

The weekend incidents in France come as governments around the world brace for so-called “lone wolf” attacks by individuals returning from waging jihad abroad, or who are simply following Islamic State group calls for violence in the countries involved in a coalition fighting the militants in Iraq and Syria.

The group has repeatedly singled out France for such attacks, most recently in a video posted on jihadist sites this week.

Last week in Australia, an Iranian-born Islamist with a history of extremism and violence entered a cafe and held people hostage for 16 hours before being killed. Two of the hostages also died.

Source: Yahoo

Somali-owned shops re-open after attacks in South Africa

Several Somali-owned shops re-opened for business on Thursday as a wave of looting and xenophobic violence in South Africa’s coastal city of Port Elizabeth was brought under control.

More than 150 small grocery shops were looted in four days of violence which was sparked by the killing of a 19-year-old South African boy by a Somali shop owner after an argument over cellphone airtime on Sunday.

“No incidents of looting have been reported since last night (Wednesday),” police spokeswoman Brigadier Marinda Mills said.

She added that “police will continue to maintain a high presence” in a number of affected areas.

Police arrested 111 people in connection with the pillaging. The man accused of killing the South African teenager was arrested but later released due to lack of evidence.

Violence spread to several townships in the eastern coastal town.

“Engagements with representatives of the foreign nationals, the community and other stakeholders will continue to make sure peace and calm returns to the area,” said Mills.

But some Somalis said they were still nervous.

“I am still nervous but the police have promised us protection, and some members of the community are supporting us and that is why I am back,” Aran Adbikarin.

Amid widespread poverty and unemployment, frustration in South Africa’s run-down neighbourhoods often boils over into anti-immigrant violence.

An explosion of deadly attacks in 2008 killed more than 60 people and displaced thousands into refugee-style camps.

Locals often accuse foreigners from other African countries of stealing their jobs and women.

Foreign-owned shops are also accused of uncompetitive business, selling their wares at lower prices than their South African counterparts.

South Africa plays host to millions of asylum seekers and refugees from across the continent. – AFP

Three arrested after more armed attacks in Muldersdrift

A Muldersdrift house robbery spree ended in a shoot-out with police and the arrest of three alleged robbers on Friday, Gauteng police said.

Lt-Col Katlego Mogale said the first robbery happened shortly after 7pm on Thursday evening, and left a 55-year-old man shot and wounded.

He was among a group of people outside their home when a barking dog alerted them to the approach of three or four men carrying firearms.

The group fled into the house, during which time the man was shot.

While police were investigating that robbery, they heard reports of a second attack — in the early hours of Friday morning — in which a television was stolen.

Police pursued the robbers to a field near the N14 Swartkop off-ramp, where a shoot-out ensued.

One alleged robber was shot and another two arrested. A fourth man escaped. The wounded robber was taken to hospital.

Police recovered clothes, two plasma televisions, cellphones and two unlicensed firearms.

Mogale said they were investigating a possible link between these robberies and the attack last week, in which 13-year-old Alyssa Botha was shot and killed in Muldersdrift.

“That is being investigated. We are not ruling out that possibility,” Mogale said. – Sapa