Tsvangirai Visits Jo'Burg Hot Spot

"There's no reason why a brother should hate a brother," Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday told Zimbabweans living in Alexandra, north of Johannesburg -- the scene of much of the past 10 days' extreme xenophobic violence that has claimed at least 42 lives and displaced 16 000 people.

"We in the MDC understand the problems you are facing," Tsvangirai said, standing on a table. "We are shocked by the plight of men and women who have left their country to [go to] a country in the region not of their own volition but because of circumstances back home."

He continued: "What I want to say to you is that the cause of this plight is none other than our political circumstances back home. We are Africans, but we are members of the same family.

"What we should be doing is to find a solution so that those who can't find jobs and food back home do not have to come [to South Africa] and find they are unwelcome here."

Mozambique is laying on special buses, which have taken some 9,000 people home this week, an official said.

Some Zimbabweans are also going home, preferring to risk the violence there than stay in South Africa.

At least 42 people have been killed and some 15,000 have sought
shelter from the mobs, who blame foreigners for high crime and
unemployment.