Paul Dihi treads cautiously through the charred carcass of his two-story shop building, taking a heartbreaking tally of the destruction wrought by xenophobic violence that raged through parts of South Africa in recent days. Dihi, who rented space to shopkeepers from Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe among others, said he received a late night call from a tenant telling him his property was ablaze, as mobs descended on foreign-owned shops and businesses in Johannesburg’s eastern suburb of Malvern late Sunday. The unrest in Malvern was part of a wave of xenophobic violence that unfurled through South Africa’s Gauteng province and other parts of the country this week, killing at least seven people and leaving scores of businesses in ruins.
