Where poverty meets xenophobia: Grahamstown, a city in crisis
By PADDY O’HALLORAN —
Five hundred people have been directly affected by xenophobic attacks in Grahamstown. Men have been evacuated from town for their safety while their wives and children remain behind, not confident that police will protect them. None of them have food, or the money to buy it. And the actions of some police officers and the xenophobic stances of some local politicians have exacerbated the problems.
In Grahamstown, the student-led shutdown of Rhodes University that began a week ago has ended. Apart from the remnants of barricades, the cardboard placards used during protests last week that welcome visitors to campus, and some blackened patches of road where tires recently burned, the western end of Grahamstown around the university are calm.
The same cannot be said of the rest of Grahamstown. Along Beaufort Street, the main route through town, shops are shut and locked. In the township, some shops were burned during an outbreak of xenophobic looting that began last Wednesday and continued through the weekend.
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