20 S. Africans Die in Squatter Camp Violence

About 200 men armed with guns, gasoline bombs and knives massacred 20 people, including two babies, in one of South Africa’s worst factional killings, police and witnesses said Saturday.

The slaughter in the Crossroads squatter camp on the edge of Katlehong, east of Johannesburg, on Friday night pushed the township wars death toll to at least 31 in 24 hours. Police said 15 men, a woman and two children were killed on the scene and two men died later in a hospital. At least 18 people were wounded, either shot, stabbed or clubbed.

Residents said a mix of revenge and politics was behind the 45-minute raid just after 11 p.m. Friday. They said that about 200 Xhosa-speakers swept in from three sides. The Xhosas swore vengeance when they were expelled from the camp in August, 1990, after a row with the mainly Zulu residents.

South Africa’s township wars, which have claimed at least 5,000 lives in the past two years, erupted out of rivalries between the African National Congress, which counts many Xhosas in its ranks, and the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party. “These people attacked without warning. The residents had no chance,” said local Inkatha official Abraham Mzizi beside the ashes and twisted corrugated metal of razed shacks.

Camp secretary Douglas Madlala said he recognized the attackers as former residents thrown out for “misbehavior.” He said they now live in ANC strongholds on the far side of railway tracks running past Crossroads. “We had been getting threats from them. They said one of these days we will get our revenge,” he said.