2 Zimbabweans feared dead in Afrophobia hit SA

ZIMBABWE'S embassy in South Africa last night said it was investigating reports that two of the six people killed in xenophobic attacks in Durban are Zimbabweans.

Isaac Moyo, Zimbabwe's Ambassador to South Africa, said they were urgently trying to confirm if the country's nationals were among the dead.

"At the moment, the issue of deaths is still hearsay and we're yet to verify with the assistance of the police," he told The Chronicle by telephone.

"We've heard that there were some Zimbabweans among the dead, a woman and a toddler, but for now we can't confirm as we're yet to visit the mortuaries so that we're able to positively identify the bodies.

"What I noticed [on a visit to Durban to see the injured and displaced] is that we had quite a number of our people who were limping and some had swollen heads."

South Africa is in the grip of a fast-spreading wave of anti-foreigner violence - the worst since 2008, when 60 people were killed and 50,000 forced to flee their homes, among them Zimbabweans.