Xenophobic attacks: Museveni, wife fly to South Africa summit as Rwanda, DRC withdraw

President Museveni together with his wife, Janet Museveni have flown to South Africa to attend the World Economic Forum on Africa.

The summit will be held at Cape Town International Convention Centre under the theme: Shaping Inclusive Growth and Shared Futures in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

It is expected to gather leaders from over 100 countries and at least 6 heads of state.

The development comes at a time when three other presidents including Paul Kagame(Rwanda), Felix Tshisekedi(DRC) as well as Peter Mutharika from Malawi have announced pulling out of the summit which is due in Cape Town later this week.

The trio is said to have withdrawn from the summit following the unfortunate xenophobic attacks in the country.

Also, Zambia has canceled an international friendly football match which was slated for Lusaka next weekend citing ‘security concerns’.

Five people have been killed in a surge of xenophobic violence in South Africa, police said on Tuesday, as President Cyril Ramaphosa vowed to clamp down and the African Union, Nigeria, and Zambia condemned the attacks.

Hordes of people — some armed with axes and machetes — gathered in Johannesburg’s central business district for a third day of unrest directed against foreigners, hours after mobs burned and looted shops in the township of Alexandra, prompting police to fire rubber bullets to disperse them.

Five deaths — most of them South Africans — have been reported, police said, adding that 189 people had been arrested.

In a video address broadcast on Twitter, Ramaphosa said attacks on businesses run by “foreign nationals is something totally unacceptable, something that we cannot allow to happen in South Africa.”

“I want it to stop immediately,” said Ramaphosa, adding that the violence had “no justification.”

Sporadic violence against foreign-owned stores and enterprises has a long history in South Africa, where many locals blame immigrants for high unemployment.