Mozambique says two nationals killed in South Africa
Mozambique said two of its citizens were killed in xenophobic unrest in South Africa, where police on Friday confirmed only that they were investigating a deadly shooting and robbery.
Two other Mozambicans had to be hospitalised after the violence on Tuesday near Johannesburg, the Mozambican government said in a statement late Thursday entitled "Xenophobia in South Africa".
South Africa has been swept by weeks of protests and unrest targeting immigrants, causing tens of thousands to flee the country.
Asked about the incident, South African police said gunmen had shot dead two men and a woman at an informal settlement before fleeing with cell phones and a tablet computer.
"Determining the motive for the attack forms part of the investigation," a police spokeswoman told AFP. The nationalities of the people involved were not yet known, she said.
The Mozambican statement said the third dead person was a South African.
It said local authorities reported that 38 Mozambicans had been forced to leave their homes in the same area of Germiston following raids carried out by anti-immigrant groups.
Weeks of protests to demand that undocumented foreign nationals leave South Africa have already claimed the lives of at least four foreigners, including two Mozambicans killed after a protest in the town of Mossel Bay late May, according to police.
But they have rejected reports from Nigeria of two other deaths linked to the unrest, as well as one from Ghana, ascribing them to the country's high rate of crime.
Mobs armed with sticks have gone door-to-door in some areas to demand that foreign nationals leave the country, accusing them of taking jobs from locals.
Homes of foreign nationals were vandalised and ransacked following a march in Germiston last week, local media reported. Locals have also reportedly looted shops run by foreigners.
Growing security fears have prompted tens of thousands of people from other African nations, including Ghana, Malawi, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Liberia, to flee.