South African police said Friday that 22 people were arrested for public violence after 3,000 mainly Zimbabwean migrants fled their homes due to tensions with locals over competition for farm jobs.
"They are all South Africans," De Doorns station commissioner Superintendent Desmond van der Westhuizen said of those arrested, adding that three people were also booked for theft in connection with the incident.
Zimbabwean workers were stopped on Tuesday from getting on to trucks taking them to jobs in the vineyards around De Doorns, about 140 kilometres (85 miles) northeast of Cape Town. Shacks were also demolished.
"The people in De Doorns indicated they don't want Zimbabweans to work on the farms because they took the work of the local people. So the targeted people here were the Zimbabwean people," said Van der Westhuizen.
Some 3,000 Zimbabweans fled to the police station and municipality and on Friday about 2,000 remained in an emergency camp, he said.
The UN refugee agency on Friday condemned the violence which has strong overtones of xenophobic attacks in May 2008, when more than 60 people were killed and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes.
"UNHCR condemns the latest xenophobic attacks that have driven some 3,000 foreigners, including refugees and asylum-seekers from Zimbabwe, from their shacks in De Doorns," spokesman Andrej Mahecic said in Geneva.
Mahecic said the foreigners were now sleeping under three communal tents in a sports field and a community centre in De Doorns.
The arrests were made on Thursday night, with police saying that the area was quiet amid a heavy police presence.
"It's stabilised," said Van der Westhuizen who predicted further arrests were possible.
Source: AFP Global Edition
