Police said violence erupted after last midnight in a rundown inner city area called Cleveland that is home to many immigrants. Two of the victims were burned and three others beaten to death. More than 50 were taken to hospitals with gunshot and stab wounds.

"It's spreading like a wildfire and the police and the army can't control it," said Emmerson Zifo, who like many of the foreigners targeted was Zimbabwean.

The trouble began last week in the sprawling township of Alexandra. Angry residents there accused foreignersm, many of them Zimbabweans who fled their own country's economic collapse, of taking scarce jobs and housing. The unrest has since spread.

Johannesburg is South Africa's economic hub and home to hundreds of thousands of immigrants. Many of them are illegal, but many have also been here for more than a decade and possess South African identity documents.

There has been sporadic anti-foreigner violence for months, mainly aimed a stores run by Somali accused of undercutting local store owner. But the violence of recent days was on a much larger scale.

Source: By DDNEWS