The Mozambican man cowered, trying to protect his head, as the blows pounded his body on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The suspected thief, known only as Johannes, begged the growing crowd of angry residents of Snake Park, Soweto, to stop assaulting him.<\/p>\n
But he and his alleged accomplice found no mercy from this impoverished community.<\/p>\n
Its residents are \u201csick and tired of being victims\u201d of crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, we\u2019re going to kill these Mozambican thieves,\u201d said Sipho Ngwekazi licking his lips.<\/p>\n
Almost to make his point, the unemployed 23-year-old pointed to a towering mine dump that looms over Block 1 in Snake Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where we\u2019ll dump their bodies,\u201d he vowed. \u201cYou\u2019ll see what mob justice is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n
He and the rest of the mob were following as the two, the other called Petrus, were dragged to a house in Block 9, where they were believed to be hiding stolen TVs.<\/p>\n
Their hands were tied with wire, their faces bloodied, as they were dragged for several kilometres in the searing heat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t give us the TVs, we\u2019re going to burn you. That\u2019s how we\u2019ll kill you,\u201d warned some residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to take the law into our own hands. The police don\u2019t care. They will just release them,\u201d said Lindiwe Jonas, a resident of Block 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, we have to teach them a lesson\u2026 we will burn rope in the hands they used to steal from us,\u201d said her friend, Esther Letswalo. \u201cThis is why we don\u2019t want foreigners here in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
A patrolling Dobsonville police van tried to follow the crowd through Snake Park\u2019s dusty alleys.
\nPolice back-up was called.<\/p>\n
As the crowd bayed for his blood, Johannes, his shirt bloodied, and his one eye swollen and sealed shut, seemed to plead with the police to intervene as the crowd tried to get to him. The police then encircled him, probably because there were journalists present.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are taking them with us,\u201d an armed policewoman informed the crowd. \u201cWe can\u2019t allow mob justice.\u201d
\nThe police put the two men in their van and drove off.<\/p>\n
The community roared, incensed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe law is useless,\u201d spat one resident, who didn\u2019t want to be named. \u201cThe police will just release them. They get away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later a small group of residents threatened to burn the shacks of the men they suspected of being thieves.<\/p>\n
Instead, they darted inside one of the men\u2019s homes, where they were seen stealing jewellery.<\/p>\n
Source: The Star<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Mozambican man cowered, trying to protect his head, as the blows pounded his body on Tuesday. The suspected thief, known only as Johannes, begged the growing crowd of angry residents of Snake Park, Soweto, to stop assaulting him. But he and his alleged accomplice found no mercy from this impoverished community. Its residents are … Continue reading “Xenophobia rules Soweto”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":20103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4102,34,10898,11475,2363,12243,3709,3890,40,757],"class_list":["post-20102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-assault","tag-crime","tag-ethnic-tension","tag-foreigners","tag-immigrants","tag-kangeroo-court","tag-mob-justice","tag-mozambicans","tag-murder","tag-soweto"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/burningman2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20104,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20102\/revisions\/20104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}