Tutu Pleads for End to Immigrant Attacks

Archbishop issues impassioned call for South Africans to end rampage
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 20, 2008 5:03 AM CDT
Tutu Pleads for End to Immigrant Attacks
Shacks burn at a squatter camp outside Johannesburg, South Africa, Monday May, 2008. Mobs rampaged through poor suburbs of Johannesburg in a frenzy of anti-foreigner violence over the weekend.   (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Archbishop Desmond Tutu pleaded yesterday with his South African countrymen to end a vicious surge of anti-immigrant violence that has killed at least 22 people, AP reports. Extra police were sent to squatter camps as roaming mobs continued to stab, beat and burn immigrant workers in some of the worst bloodshed the country has seen since apartheid. "The violence is extreme," said a spokesman for Doctors Without Borders.

The rioters blame foreign workers for taking jobs and scarce resources, and making their poverty worse. "Please stop. Please stop the violence now," Tutu pleaded. "These are our sisters and brothers. We can't disgrace our struggle by these acts of violence." (More Desmond Tutu stories.)

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