The widow of former president Nelson Mandela has warned the South African government to deal with the problems which have led to the recent xenophobic attacks or it will see them resurfacing again.
Speaking at the memorial service of Emmanuel Sithole, Graça Machel told mourners that since the attacks were happening for the second time, the nation had no excuse not to deal with them decisively.
“We may say that in 2008 we did not know. Now in 2015, we can no longer say we do not know. Now we know how bad it can be … our actions have to be proportional to the deep crisis we are going through,” Machel said.
Machel said the hatred in South African society was inculcated by the apartheid government. She warned that while the anger was expressed to foreigners for now, “tomorrow it will be against South Africans themselves”.