Mozambique says five citizens killed in ‘xenophobic attacks’ in South Africa

South African police confirm two deaths of Mozambicans in Mossel Bay as anti-immigration violence sweeps country

Mozambique said five of its nationals were killed in “xenophobic attacks” in South Africa at the weekend and efforts were under way on Tuesday to repatriate hundreds of others.

However, the South African police confirmed only that two Mozambicans had died in violence in the southern coastal town of Mossel Bay, the first killings to be officially linked to a wave of anti-migrant protests sweeping the country.

A South African teenager was also killed, police said, with reports that dozens of shacks were torched, some while people were inside them.

Protests against undocumented foreign nationals have been mounting in South Africa in recent weeks, leading Ghana to evacuate about 300 of its citizens last week, with Nigeria also announcing repatriation plans.

The Mozambique government’s media office said in a statement late on Monday that seven Mozambican citizens had died after violence broke out on Friday in Mossel Bay, about 380km (235 miles) east of Cape Town.

Five deaths were “a direct consequence of the xenophobic attacks and the other two as a result of a road accident, when they were travelling in a private vehicle on their way back to Mozambique”, it said. But the South African police told AFP that only two Mozambique nationals, aged 27 and 43, were killed in an informal settlement attached to Mossel Bay, both from multiple injuries from assault.

In the early hours of Sunday, police in the same area found the body of an 18-year-old South African who had been stabbed to death in unclear circumstances, they said.