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Johannesburg - A teenager was killed during looting of yet another spaza shop, this time in Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria, national police said on Friday.
"In that commotion a 19-year-old was killed, he was shot," Lieutenant General Solomon Makgale said of the youth's death on Thursday.
Makgale said Atteridgeville residents protested over land occupations on Wednesday. This continued into the early hours of Thursday, when they damaged a councillor's house.
"After that they went on a rampage looting spaza shops throughout Atteridgeville township."
Makgale said the looting was indiscriminate and not necessarily aimed at foreign shop owners.
It was during the looting that the teenager was killed, bringing the death toll in violence between foreigners and locals over the past two weeks to seven, by the police's count.
"There are allegations that it was one of the foreign nationals that did it, but we want to make sure that when we arrest people that we have positive evidence linking them to the alleged crime."
‘No reports of looting’
No arrests had been made, but police were investigating.
"Atteridgeville remains tense, but we've deployed police officers. There haven't been any reports of looting this morning (Friday)."
At least nine people have been killed following the shooting of 14-year-old Siphiwe Mahori in Snake Park, Soweto, last Monday. Mahori was allegedly part of a group trying to rob a Somali's shop.
Police did not link two of the deaths to the backlash against foreign shop owners that followed Mahori's death.
Makgale said there was a difference between the looting, such as in Soweto, and other crime that happened daily.
"There is normal criminal activity throughout the year that involves foreign nationals, so do we then add all those names also?"
The list of those killed is:
- Siphiwe Mahori, 14, shot dead in Snake Park last Monday after a foreign shop owner shot into a group allegedly trying to rob him (confirmed by police);
- Nhlanhla Monareng, 19, was shot and killed in Naledi (confirmed by the police);
- A 61-year-old bystander shot and killed in Swaneville, on Gauteng's West Rand, when a foreign-owned shop was being stoned;
- A 1-month-old baby boy was trampled by looters in Kagiso (confirmed by police);
- Two suspected looters killed in Langlaagte (confirmed by police);
- Malawian shopkeeper Dan Mokwena, 74, attacked and killed as he slept;
- A Somali businessman in eNhlugwane, KwaZulu-Natal, was killed by an intruder in his shop.
KwaZulu-Natal safety MEC Willies Mchunu said a man burst into his shop, opened fire, and ran away without taking anything.
- The 19-year-old shot dead, allegedly by a foreign national, during looting in Atteridgeville.
The deaths of the bystander and Mokwena were not included in the police's count as they said these were not directly related to the looting.
Last week violence, labelled by some as xenophobic, and looting of foreign-owned shops spread from Soweto to Kagiso on the West Rand, Sebokeng in the Vaal, Eden Park in Ekurhuleni and Alexandra, north of Johannesburg.
Somali national Alodixashi Sheik Yusuf has appeared in court charged with Mahori's shooting. He will return to court on 4 February.
Over 150 other people have been arrested in connection with public violence and possession of stolen property.
