Xeno Sakala is just two days old, but he has already been catapulted into a legend. His birth will be a lasting reminder of Zimbabwean people's suffering at the hands of South Africans.His proud mother, Diana Sakala, 30, hopes that through Xeno, born on Wednesday, the memory of last weekend, when a marauding mob bayed for foreigners' blood in Ekurhuleni, will remain etched in her mind.
"I called him Xeno because of these xenophobic crimes. When he grows up, I don't want him to be like these people who rob, rape and kill others under the pretext of xenophobia," said Sakala, speaking from a storeroom where she and other displaced foreigners are being accommodated.
"It's like my world has fallen apart in a few minutes. They burnt our shacks, looted everything we had, including clothes for this baby," she said, flanked by her husband, Clement.
"I don't think all South Africans are bad," she said, out of gratitude for the police and nurses who helped her.
Sakala, who came to South Africa from Harare four years ago, said she was not sure whether she wanted to return to Zimbabwe.
Her husband said: "Here, you can work and be beaten or get killed, but once we cross that river, we can't get work but can still be beaten or killed. It's like we are caught in crossfire." - Cape Argus
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