Arrests made in Gauteng province following overnight street battles in downtown Johannesburg.

Arrests are being made in Johannesburg following attacks against foreign nationals [EPA]

by Khadija Patel, Al Jazeera

Arrests have been made in South Africa as anti-immigrant violence spreads to parts of Johannesburg’s commercial heart.

In Gauteng province, of which Johannesburg is the capital city, police arrested 18 people after overnight street battles, Major-General Phumzo Gela, deputy police commissioner, said on Friday afternoon.

Earlier police fired rubber-coated steel bullets into a crowd of South Africans in Johannesburg’s Jeppestown area.

A crowd of South Africans carrying hammers and axes gathered near the city centre, chanting “Foreigners must leave.”

Groups of South Africans in Jeppestown and Cleveland blocked roads with rocks and burning tyres and then ordered foreigners to leave the country, police said.

Jeppestown and Cleveland are neighbourhoods adjoining the Johannesburg Central Business District (CBD).

#xenophobicattacks police now using live ammunition to clean up the streets pic.twitter.com/qPeinMNgMj

— EWN Reporter (@ewnreporter) April 17, 2015

A number of shops in the CBD were reported to have been looted and vandalised, further escalating tensions between foreigners and South Africans in Johanneburg.

Police said the suspects were trying to break into shops owned by foreigners.

Colonel Dlamini, police spokesperson, told Al Jazeera calm had been restored, but refused to reveal whether police had received credible reports of further threats of violence against foreigners in the city.

Violence targeting immigrants started earlier in April in the port city of Durban, claiming the lives of six people so far.

Rumours circulating

Rumours of imminent attacks on foreigners have continued to affect foreign nationals in Johannesburg.

Ahmed Fifa, a 35-year-old shop owner in the Ramaphosa settlement east of Johannesburg, said foreign nationals were warned by locals to vacate the area on Thursday night.

“One of the community leaders came to us and told us to move all our stuff and save our lives,” he said.

According to Fifa, the South Africans in Ramaphosa are divided between those who seek to protect foreigners and those intent on violently driving foreigners out.

“I can’t go back until the situation remains stable,” Fifa said. “I have seen the pictures of what happened in Durban and I need to save my life.

“The only problem we have here is the xenophobia.”

In Durban, where six people have been killed in the last two weeks of violence against immigrants, police spokesperson Jay Naicker a fragile calm had been maintained on Friday.

“Overnight we had no reported incidents and it has been calm,” Naicker said, adding that the police had not received reports of further threats against immigrants in coastal city.

He said foreigners would still not be re-integrated into the affected communities.

“The area is still tense and the police and security deployment will remain for a while,” Naicker said.

Amir Sheikh, chairperson of the Somali Community Board based in Johannesburg, said the violence in Durban has inflamed tensions between South Africans and foreigners.

“Some of our members have been harassed in Johannesburg following the violence in Durban,” he said.

Late on Thursday a widely disseminated text message claimed that “a train of Zulus” had departed for Johannesburg.

“These men are armed and they are going to be killing any foreigner they meet tomorrow,” the text message said.

The source of these messages remains unclear, but their proliferation has sowed panic and confusion among migrant communities.

“Our members have been unable to go about their day-to-day businesses because each time they open their businesses, a new message is received saying members of a certain ethnic group are gathering to attack them,” Sheikh said.

While these rumours have so far, proven to be false, its effects have already been felt.

Foreign owned stores around Johannesburg have been closed for at least two days already.

“The unfounded rumours have caused more damage to our members than anything else,” Sheikh said.

On Thursday South African President Jacob Zuma and leaders of the opposition in parliament spoke out against the violence against foreign nationals.

Zuma said that the majority of South Africans were not xenophobic.

“We reiterate our view that South Africans are generally not xenophobic,” he said.

“If they were, we would not have such a high number of foreign nationals who have been successfully integrated into communities all over our country, in towns, cities and villages.”

After weeks of violence, primarily in KwaZulu-Natal, thousands take part in solidarity rally in Durban.

by Al Jazeera

Thousands of people are expected to attend a march in South Africa’s coastal city of Durban in solidarity with the country’s foreign nationals.

The march, on Thursday, which includes religious leaders and concerned citizens, comes after weeks of attacks against foreign nationals in which at least five people have been killed and 74 people arrested since the end of March, according to Colonel Jay Naicker, the police spokesperson.

#peacemarch #durban marches against attacks of foreign nationals #xenophobia pic.twitter.com/33mwkQM8WP

— harumutasa/aljazeera (@harumutasa) April 16, 2015

Al Jazeera producer Mukelwa Hlatshwayo, also reporting from the march in the coastal city of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, said that as many as 5,000 people had joined the prosession and that the atmosphere was calm with people ulilating and singing songs of solidarity. Reuters news agency reported that bullets has been shot into the crowd but our correspondent said she had only witnessed a few people shouting into the crowd on the sidelines of the procession that “foreigners must go home.” Many shops remained closed in the business capital of the country, Johannesburg in the Gauteng province fearing attacks as well. Groups of people were said to have travelled to Durban from other provinces to join in the show of solidarity with the foreign nationals. Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa, reporting from Durban, tweeted the following:

#peacemarch #southafricans from other parts of the country on their way to #durban to march and protest against #xenophobia — harumutasa/aljazeera (@harumutasa) April 16, 2015

Similar attacks occurred in 2008 in which at least 60 people were killed. Messages circulating on social media warned people in Gauteng province and KwaZulu-Natal to be on high alert for possible attacks and to also remain indoors. Seeking refuge In Malawi, officials have set up transit camps expected to house Malawians returning to the country, Kondwani Nankhumwa, the country’s information minister, said. More than 2,000 foreigners have already sought shelter in refugee camps in Durban, a South African aid group said on Wednesday. The refugee camps, set up on sports fields around Durban, will not be large enough if attacks on immigrants continue, said Imtiaz Sooliman of the Gift of the Givers organisation. Those who can afford it are planning to leave the country, he said. “They’ve lost their houses, they’ve lost their businesses, they’ve lost everything,” Sooliman said. The organisation made the following appeal to the government on social media on Wednesday:

Whilst we make a call on all South Africans to support our initiative to show that we are a nation that cares, we also call on government…

— Gift of the Givers (@GiftoftheGivers) April 14, 2015

South Africa President Jacob Zuma condemned the violence and assigned several cabinet ministers to work on the problem with officials in KwaZulu-Natal province.

The government is addressing South African citizens’ “complaints about illegal and undocumented migrants, the takeover of local shops and other businesses by foreign nationals as well as perceptions that foreign nationals perpetrate crime”, Zuma’s office said in a statement.

He also issued a warning to illegally operating foreign-owned businesses to close their doors.

Zuma was due to make statement regarding the attacks later on Thursday.

Some foreign nationals boycotted the march in protest against the South African government’s efforts to resolve the problem.
Our correspondent tweeted the following from the march:

some foreigners refuse to join #peacemarch saying they need “protection from #southafrica gvt and police not marches”. #saynotoxenophobia

— harumutasa/aljazeera (@harumutasa) April 16, 2015

Our producer, Hlatshwayo, said that they are saying that government should protect them.

“There are still those out there feel that there are people who still don’t want them there and that this has not been addressed.”

She added that there is a feeling that the reach of the social media campaign was limited to the economic class that had access to it and that the anti-xenophobia message needed to be taken to the community as well.