Mozambique said at least five of its citizens were killed in attacks over the weekend in South Africa, in what it described as xenophobic violence tied to protests against undocumented immigration.
About 800 Mozambicans were affected by violence that began Friday in Mossel Bay, a coastal city in South Africa’s Western Cape province, Mozambique’s government press office said in a statement received Tuesday.
“Regrettably, seven Mozambican citizens have died, five of them as a direct consequence of the xenophobic attacks and the other two as a result of a road accident, when they were travelling in a private vehicle on their way back to Mozambique,” the statement said.
The statement said 300 Mozambicans returned home on Saturday. “The remaining just over 500 have since been sheltered in a safe location in the Western Cape Province, and as of today, 1 June, the process of their repatriation to Mozambique is already underway,” it said.
South African police said Sunday they were investigating the deaths of two men at an informal settlement in Mossel Bay, about 380 kilometers (236 miles) east of Cape Town, where attacks on migrants had been reported.
Police did not say whether the deaths were linked to the protests, and the nationalities of the two men were not immediately clear.
The area has seen anti-migrant protests similar to those reported in Johannesburg, Durban, and parts of Eastern Cape province in recent weeks.