Consul-general: No Nigerian died in fresh xenophobic attack

The Nigerian Mission in South Africa says no Nigerian died in the fresh attacks in the country but over 50 vehicles and other property worth millions of dollars owned by Nigerians were vandalised, burnt or stolen.

Godwin Adama, Nigeria’s consul general in Johannesburg, disclosed this in an in a telephone interview with NAN on Tuesday.

The renewed xenophobic attacks on Nigerians and other foreigners in Pretoria and Johannesburg took place between August 28 and September 1.

The crisis resulted in looting and burning of businesses and property belonging to foreigners and death of five people.

“Several foreign owned shops were targeted but it affected Nigerians greatly; over 50 vehicles in car marts owned by Nigerians were vandalized, burnt or stolen, although few were reportedly recovered,” he said.

“As at today, the situation is calm, the only area there have been looting are the traders shops at a place called Alexandra in South Africa, where shops were looted overnight.

“This is to show you that it is not just Nigerians they have been looting, mostly foreigners that have shops and businesses in South Africa.
“These include Indians, Chinese and Pakistanis; where Indians have major malls have been locked, maybe they will open today.”

He said “criminals” seized the opportunity of the fire outbreak that occurred to loot property belonging to foreigners and as such some people were affected.

“No Nigerian has been killed, and the only thing that the criminals attacked were shops, because they may know that such shops belong to foreign nationals,” he said.

“There is a place where only two shops belonged to Nigerians out of the nine that were attacked, but there are other places where there are more Nigerian shops in Marvel or Jules Street.

“These are areas Nigerians love a lot, because we have large number of Nigerians there. So, some of the shops were burnt and even looted and they lost a lot within these areas.

“There was not attack against anybody, there was only attack on property and those property in business areas.”

He said the African National Congress (ANC) had condemned the attacks, dissociating the party and government from the actions.

He added that the Nigeria high commission in Pretoria and the Nigeria consulate in Johannesburg would put measures in place to ensure coordinated response at the diplomatic level.