The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Johannesburg

An anti-immigrant backlash in South Africa stretched into a third week Sunday amid mounting concern over 25,000 foreigners who have fled the violence.

The Red Cross in South Africa has said it is caring for 25,000 destitute people who had been driven from their homes around Johannesburg and Pretoria, the hotspot of the unrest which has left at least 42 dead over the past two weeks. Thousands have left makeshift homes in slum areas to shelter at police stations, community centres and churches where they are being cared for by aid groups providing tents, blankets and food.

Sunday newspapers made for alarming reading, with The Sunday Times headlining with "It's a State of Emergency" and The Sunday Independent front-page announcing "Ethnic Cleansing, SA Style."

Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, warned Saturday of the danger of illness among the displaced and said the government needed to make a decision on how victims would be looked after.

A growing humanitarian crisis was also reported in Cape Town in the Western Cape province where attacks spread for the first time last week.

Cape Town spokesman Billy Jones said there had been lootings across the province on Friday night and Saturday morning, forcing foreigners to flee and leave their property unattended.

"We had 200 arrests related to the lootings. It happened everywhere, mob style, people go into the premises and just start taking stuff," he told AFP.

"People out of fear just vacated their property voluntarily."