Not So Welcome in South Africa

MASIPHUMELELE, South Africa -- The mob announced itself the night of Aug. 28 with a terrifying clatter of stones against the tin walls of Hadith Haji Adam Osman's tiny shop. As he cowered inside, watching one window and then the other shatter from the onslaught, Osman recalled, the young men waved machetes in the air and shouted: "Baraka hamba! Baraka hamba!"

In the slang of this township on the rocky, ragged foothills of Cape Town, "Baraka" is the word for Somali shopkeepers such as Osman, 26, who have traveled thousands of miles from their war-ravaged homeland in search of peace and prosperity in South Africa. And "hamba," a word from the dominant Xhosa language here, means "Go away!"

Looking back on that night, when dozens of Somali shopkeepers lost their homes, jobs and dreams for better futures, Osman counts himself fortunate just to be alive. In the past three months, community leaders say, 32 Somalis have been killed in attacks in townships as South African businessmen have violently defended their turf against the newcomers. The most recent death came Saturday in the township of Delft, also near Cape Town.

"When I see my fellow Somalians being killed, I also understand I am lucky to have survived," said Osman, a slender and short man with a wisp of hair on his chin and the thoughtful manner of a patient older brother.

The attacks on Somali immigrants have drawn attention to a vicious strain of xenophobia lurking in South Africa, a nation determined to portray itself as a model of harmonious diversity but tormented by some of the world's highest rates of violent crime.

The attacks are also a chilling reminder, South Africans say, of the violence that marked the final years of apartheid. Clashes in squalid townships such as this forced the government to abandon a decades-old racial order in 1994 but left the nation with a glut of cheap weapons and a legacy of brutality that lingers in the epidemic of rapes, murders and robberies.

Somalis say the recent attacks have convinced them that South Africa's townships are no safer than Mogadishu, the violent capital of a country so riven by power struggles that no government has controlled all of it since 1991.

"People are going back to Somalia now, no matter what's happening there," said Abdi Hakim, 35, whose grocery store in a township near Cape Town has been robbed twice this year. "If we're going to die, we're going to die there in our homeland."

Mohammed Abdullahi, 35, fled Somalia in 2003, leaving behind a wife and three children in Mogadishu. He eventually found his way to South Africa and opened a shop in Khayelitsha, among the largest and most dangerous of the townships near Cape Town.

On Monday, he said, six young men came to his shop shortly after dark. Without saying a word, one of the men shot Abdullahi in the right temple, leaving him for dead in a pool of his own blood but stealing nothing.

From his Cape Town hospital bed, where Abdullahi is recovering but is unlikely to see again, he struggled for breath in recounting the attack. As he raised his right hand in the shape of a pistol, he whispered, "I've been shot because I'm Somali."

The Somalis began arriving in Masiphumelele in 2002 with the opening of Baraka Cash Store, a modest grocery. "Baraka" means "blessing from God" in the guttural mother tongue of the Somalis, and as their numbers swelled the township's residents began calling them "Barakas."

The Somali shops did not look different from the ramshackle collection of hair salons, bars and vegetable stands that already lined the streets of Masiphumelele. But customers here, struggling for every penny despite being nestled in the mountains just a few miles away from South Africa's glitziest tourist spots, soon noticed that the Barakas sold their goods for less than the stores owned by South Africans. The Barakas also offered a warmer, more responsive brand of customer service, residents said.

The Somalis, mostly unmarried men in their twenties and thirties, worked all day, every day, then slept on cots in their shops at night. They also lent one another money, hired other Somalis as employees and developed strong ties with the region's distributors.

Rivals were not happy, and as more and more Barakas moved to Masiphumelele and opened shops -- the total reached 27 in a community of about 20,000 residents -- the township grew tense. There was a string of robberies. Some shops had their windows broken. One Somali shopkeeper said that every few weeks, a young tough would walk into his shop and say, "Tomorrow I am going to kill you."

On the night of Aug. 24, a group of the township's South African businessmen gathered in a community hall to vent their frustrations. By the end of the meeting, they had agreed that rather than compete against the Somalis, they instead would chase them away, giving them three days to leave.

One of the men at the meeting later told police, "We should not be surprised if one of the Somali businessmen is killed," according to a police report. Another was quoted as saying that if the Somalis did not leave, "we are going to send our dogs."

The three days passed without incident. Then shortly after 8 p.m. on Aug. 28, a mob of more than 200 men and women formed as Somalis across Masiphumelele were closing their shops.

Throughout that night, the crowd moved from Somali-owned shop to Somali-owned shop, bashing in doors, ripping holes in walls, tearing off roofs. Inside, the shopkeepers grabbed machetes and prepared to die protecting their property, they said. But when they saw the sheer numbers of the approaching mob, most fled in terror instead. Some, like Osman, prayed that steel-gated doors would hold as they furiously punched the number of the police on their cellphones.

By the time a group of 10 officers arrived, the situation was out of control, said Capt. Roy Matthee, head of detectives at nearby Ocean View police station. The officers frantically tried to rescue the Somalis and fired rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.

Over the course of that night, 400 rubber rounds were expended, but the shops were thoroughly damaged and emptied out -- in some cases, only the concrete floors were left. But not a single Somali was killed.

Police arrested two men for the attacks of that night, and charges of intimidation were filed against seven of the businessmen who attended the meeting of Aug. 24. All are now free on bail, awaiting trial.

Most of the shopkeepers spent the next several weeks in churches, community halls and mosques. Many are now planning their return to Somalia, they say, ready to leave South Africa as soon as they can raise the money.

The businessman who led the meeting, Khaya Aubrey Cwayi, 32, said he was sorry about the attacks, which he blamed on others. He said the business community of Masiphumelele would not object to having some Somalis return as long as they did not drain too much of the profits of other stores.

"It would be fine if we could have five or seven shops of the Somalians. Not more," he said. "If they are all over the place, those existing businesses will never make any money."

Osman visited his old shop last week. The landlord had repaired the windows, and the hole in the wall where the mob had forced its way inside was closed up as well. As Osman looked at the gutted store, which was empty save for some broken eggs and plastic milk crates, several old customers begged him to return to Masiphumelele.

They missed his low prices, they said, and his smile.

"Please come back," said Matilda Badla, 23, who lived across the street from Osman's old shop. "This week."

Osman sadly shook his head. He had no money to restock. And where he once felt hope, he said, now there was only fear.

"They want me to be here," he said. "I also like them. But circumstances will not allow it."

By Craig Timberg