SOUTH AFRICA: Theft is not the sole motive for the attacks in Western Cape, writes Joe Humphreys in Cape Town
Mohamoud and Ilyas were the best of friends. They fled together from their war-torn Somali homeland, taking a boat to Tanzania and then stowing away on trucks and buses through Mozambique.
They were arrested and detained twice, but 18 months ago, finally made it to South Africa - and the promise of a peaceful and more prosperous life. They each set up corner shops, trading food in an informal settlement near Cape Town.
But one day, someone broke into Ilyas's store and shot him dead. Weeks later, Mohamoud was viciously stabbed in another apparent robbery attempt.
"The knife went into my neck," said the gangly 32-year-old, pointing to a scar below the base of his skull. "The doctors said if it was a few centimetres higher I would be dead."
The attacks were far from isolated. More than 40 Somali shopkeepers have been killed in Western Cape in the past three months, according to representatives of the 2,000-strong local Somali community.
Theft appears to have been the main motive but not the sole one, with an increasing number of killings taking place without anything being stolen from the victims.
In some townships, indigenous businessmen jealous of the Somalis' success have orchestrated boycotts and even attacks against the immigrants. In one incident last month, up to 300 South African shop owners, landlords and residents looted and torched more than a dozen Somali-owned shops in the black-dominated township of Masiphumelele.
The Western Cape government is now investigating whether the killings have been co-ordinated, and if so whether racism is a motivating factor.
Yusuf Digaleh (40) has little doubt about the matter. On October 1st last, he was shot in the shoulder by a gunman at his small shop in Khayelitsha.
"What would you think if someone shoots you and doesn't take anything from you? It's not robbery," said the father of seven who comes from Kismayo, a town near the Kenyan border recently seized by Islamists who are seeking to topple Somalia's transitional government.
"I left Somalia because of the fighting there. But I was never shot in Somalia," he added wryly.
The attacks coincide with a reported upsurge in xenophobia in South Africa - directed against the increasing number of economic migrants and political refugees from Zimbabwe and Nigeria in particular. Human rights groups have expressed concern at the conditions in which some illegal immigrants are kept, and a recent survey by local research company Plus 94 claimed that blacks accounted for the "most racist" ethnic group in South Africa.
Abdifatah Ismail, a Somali representative in Cape Town, said South Africa's isolation during the apartheid era could be a factor in the attacks. "The people here are not used to immigrants because they were alone for so many years." His colleague Jamal Ahmed Warsame said: "There are also business jealousies. People think we are taking their jobs." A shopkeeper based in Bellville, near Cape Town, found his cousin murdered recently - shot twice in the head - in yet another "robbery" in which nothing was taken.
"I know some shop owners were not happy to have him in the area," said Jamal.
Mohamoud - full name Mohamoud Beehe - believes the Somalis were seen as "soft targets" as they were prohibited from carrying firearms under immigration laws. Moreover, "the police response is not very co-ordinated. They don't investigate the crimes like they would if it was a local person killed." He noted that police caught one of the people who stabbed him but refused to deal with it as a criminal matter, telling Mohamoud to open a civil case instead. "People don't have an expectation of being caught or punished," he added.
Local police, who initially denied that Somalis were being targeted, said they continued to believe the attacks were purely theft-related. They also disputed the figures, saying they were only aware of 20 killings of Somalis over the past 10 months.
The response has angered many of the victims, although Jamal said he didn't blame the government specifically because they had inherited problems such as poverty and violent crime from the apartheid era and "have only had 12 years" to try to sort them out.
In the absence of an effective policing initiative, some shopkeepers believe they should be allowed to take the law into their own hands. "Some people carry sticks but we can't access guns. If you are caught with a gun you will be expelled and no one wants to risk that," said Mohamoud.
Privately, many locals are supporting the Somalis whose thrifty business acumen has allowed them to undercut indigenous traders, and to offer goods and services at cut-down prices. As Mohamoud noted: "Business is booming. My customers don't want me to leave." Fearful of encountering a similar fate as his friend, who on his death orphaned five children in Somalia, Mohamoud added: "Some people are saying it's better to go home and be killed with our families than to die here alone.
"We are confused. We left our country because of killing. Now it's the same here."