Child poisoning deaths fuel xenophobia in South Africa

SOWETO, South Africa (AFP) The deaths of 23 children from suspected food poisoning in Johannesburg this year have sparked anger against foreign nationals who run small corner shops known as spazas in South Africa.

There is still police tape around a closed spaza shop in Soweto’s Naledi district that allegedly sold snacks to six young children who died of poisoning in October.

The tragedy angered local residents, who attacked and looted the spaza and went after the shopkeeper, said to be an Ethiopian national. Even the person who rented the building ran away in fear.

Although the autopsy revealed that pesticides caused the deaths, no official connection was made to the store.

Reactions escalated as similar cases were reported in other regions, leading authorities to raid foreign-run spazas to check compliance with laws and regulations.

Many were forced to close and shopkeepers (usually from Ethiopia, India, Pakistan or Somalia) fled.

Six spazas were closed last week in Olievenhoutbosch, outside the capital Pretoria, due to irregularities, city council official Sarah Mabotsa said.

“They sell expired food, they sell leather goods, they sell meat, everything in one shop,” he accused.

– ‘Operation Dudula’ –

South Africa, the continent’s most industrialized economy, is a priority destination for people looking for work, although its own unemployment rate is around 32 percent.

Competition has fueled distrust and even violence.

If authorities do not intervene, a xenophobic vigilante group known as Operation Dudula (Zulu for “push back”) often does.

In Naledi, Dudula’s efforts have recently resulted in South African nationals replacing foreign shopkeepers in six spazas.

“We chased foreigners. “Earlier, foreigners were running the shop and we kicked them out,” said Maphoka Mohalanwani, one of the new shopkeepers, proudly.

The 54-year-old said the recent food poisonings were undoubtedly “related to strangers”.

“When our children eat chips from the street, they don’t die, they die because of their poison,” Mohalanwani said.

The former cashier was chosen for the job by Operation Dudula, which provided some funding for South Africans to take over from foreign nationals running spaza shops.

“Some stores were closed by the authorities because they did not comply with the laws of this country,” Zandile Dabula, head of Operation Dudula, told AFP.

As for those that reopened, “we made sure they went back and closed again,” he said.

Even politicians have made clear calls for all spaza shops to be run by South Africans.

– Elimination of competition –

A wave of tragic deaths of young children has shaken South Africa; In the absence of proven facts as to what actually caused their deaths, speculation ran wild.

Some people believe that foreigners deliberately set out to poison South Africans; Others say the outcry is a ploy to put the spazas and their profits back into the hands of locals.

“We don’t know what caused these (cases),” Somali national Zachariah Salah said at a spaza in White City in Soweto.

He said it was not even clear whether the poisoning allegations were true. Either way, “it’s tragic for us.”

Loren Landau, who studies immigration at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said attacks on foreign-owned shops “are really about eliminating business competition.”

“If you try to close down businesses in South Africa, people will protest,” he said. But “you can chase a stranger and no one will object.”

In the White City, one of the spazas that closed in the initial outburst a few weeks ago has reopened, much to the relief of locals who rely on corner shops.

“When it closed, I had to go to shopping malls that were far away,” said Nomsa Skosan, 63, who wandered the aisles of cereal, frozen food and household goods.

“If the things they sell in these stores are as bad as they say, why are they being looted?”