South Africa Commemorates Victims of Xenophobic Violence

(3 Jully 08-RV) South African President Thabo Mbeki says anti-immigrant attacks that left 62 dead
must never be repeated. Mbeki was speaking today at a ceremony in honour of the immigrants and South Africans caught up in the May violence, when attacks pitted the poorest of the poor against one another. South Africans in squatter camps and other impoverished areas accused people from neighboring countries like crisis-hit Zimbabwe of taking scarce jobs and housing.
Some 9,000 people remain in the tent camps the government organized for those who fled the violence. Thousands of others have returned to their homelands. Gunter Simmermacher is the Editor for South Africa’s Catholic Weekly The Southern Cross. He spoke with us about the Catholic Church’s response to May’s attacks.