The most severe xenophobic attacks erupted on Sunday, May 11, 2008 when residents of Johannesburg's oldest township, Alexandra, began attacking foreigners. The victims were the poor, many of them illegal immigrants from Mozambique and strife-torn Zimbabwe.
It would be the start of two weeks of xenophobic violence, the greatest challenge to South Africa's young democracy since 1994.When it was over, at least 62 people lay dead and tens of thousands were left homeless.
These photographs serve as a record of that violence, from Alexandra where angry mobs hunted foreigners throughout the night, often going house to house in their pursuit. The rioting and killing became more brutal as machete wielding crowds began burning and hacking their victims. Those who escaped fled to police stations, which overnight became refugee camps filled with the displaced, while others slipped back across the border to their neighbouring countries.
As an over extended police force continued their fight to quell the unrest, the riots spread from Pretoria, where they first manifested, to Johannesburg and then to Cape Town. It was only with the deployment of the South African army that the worst of the unrest subsided, leaving a humanitarian crisis, the extent of which South Africa had never seen.
‘'Faces of Xenophobic hate''
Date: 12/05/08. Time: 10:35am. Location: 4th Avenue, Alexandra Township
‘'Alex up in flames''
Date: 13/05/08. Time: 20:33pm. Location: Alexandra Township, extension 7.
‘'Stop These Flames''
Date: 18/05/08. Time: 17:13pm. Location: Primrose informal settlement.
‘'Think roots and wings''
Date: 20/05/08. Time: 9:28am. Location: Ramaphosa informal settlement.
"McBride reads the riot act"
Date: 20/05/08. Time: 12:26pm. Location: Ramaphosa informal settlement.
