This archive report was first published on 4 September 2019.
Published on September 4, 2019, a day after mobs descended on business hubs and townships in South Africa, looting dozens of shops and torching trucks driven by foreigners.
More than a hundred demonstrators clashed with police near a South African-owned supermarket in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Wednesday. The clashes occurred near a mall where a branch of the Shoprite supermarket is located.
"We must avenge the death of our citizens in South Africa," said one of the demonstrators, Joseph Tasha.
Security was ramped up around South African businesses across Nigeria on Wednesday following a spate of reprisal attacks, police said. Stores operated by Shoprite, the telecoms giant MTN, and other South African firms suffered looting and vandalism in several Nigerian cities.
On Monday and Tuesday, mobs descended on business hubs and townships in various parts of South Africa, looting dozens of shops and torching trucks driven by foreigners in an outburst of anti-migrant anger.
Five people, most of them South Africans, have been killed and almost 300 arrested.
South Africa has huge investments in Nigeria, with Shoprite, MTN, digital pay-television Multichoice, and other companies jostling for a share of the continent's biggest market.
Foreigners in South Africa have been accused of taking jobs away from South Africans -- nearly one South African worker in three is unemployed.
The information commissioner for Lagos state, Gbenga Omotosho, condemned the attacks, saying they were against the Nigerian spirit of accommodation and benevolence.
Information Minister Lai Mohammed also warned that targeting South African companies in Nigeria for attack was akin to cutting off one's nose to spite the face.
