Fear Amid Hostility in South Africa

Despite its wrenching poverty, South Africa is among Africa's richest countries and a magnet for immigrants, who number 3 million to 5 million. They have come as mineworkers, refugees from conflicts and, in the case of millions of Zimbabweans, illegal immigrants escaping economic ruin at home.

Most of those killed in May were Zimbabwean and Mozambican, but by some accounts as many as one-third were South African.

The attacks prompted soul-searching in a nation whose liberation leaders were given refuge throughout Africa during the apartheid era. Many South Africans criticized the government as failing to help the downtrodden, who view immigrants as competition for jobs. Others saw the violence as a symbol of ousted president Thabo Mbeki's failed strategy with Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, which they say led to an influx of immigrants from that country.

Some, including Mbeki and ANC leader Jacob Zuma, said the brutality was not xenophobic -- as it has been widely labeled -- but rather, as Zuma put it, "thuggery and criminality."

But surveys over the past decade by the Southern African Migration Project have found that hostility toward outsiders is higher in South Africa than in most nations where comparable data exist. In a recent report, the project said warnings by researchers and elected officials about the potential for violence were mostly ignored, leading to a "perfect xenophobic storm" this year.

In a May report, a parliamentary task force called for a revival of a defunct anti-xenophobia campaign and suggested a theme "along the lines of 'We are all Africans.' " The team said last month that it would evaluate refugee reintegration. Parliamentary spokesmen did not respond to two requests for information about the outcome of the evaluation.

This week, after the closure of most of the camps, the Department of Home Affairs held a meeting with civic and government groups to discuss xenophobia, an issue the department has tried to tackle before.

"Clearly, it hasn't been enough. Maybe it hasn't communicated the right messages," said Siobhan McCarthy, a spokeswoman for the agency.

Critics say the response has been spotty at best.

"It's not high on the agenda of issues that I see the leadership dealing with," said Shadrack Gutto, director of the center for African renaissance studies at the University of South Africa. "And it ought to be very high on the agenda."

Most of the 38,000 immigrants displaced during the attacks have returned to their countries or to South African communities, said UNHCR spokesman Yusuf Hassan. As of Oct. 3, more than 4,300 had accepted U.N. grants of $100 to $300, a sum that some refugees say is too little to rent a new home.

In interviews, many of the Akasia camp residents said the United Nations should resettle them in a third country. Hassan said that could happen only on a case-by-case basis, and he noted that more than 100,000 legal refugees and asylum seekers live in South Africa without major problems.