Ceremony on hold for mourning

South Africa's president said seven people have died in ongoing attacks on immigrants in the country, and he has postponed an important ceremony because of the crisis.

The office of President Jacob Zuma said on Monday that the ceremony, scheduled for next week, must be postponed so the country can mourn the victims of anti-immigrant violence.

The annual event, to bestow the country's highest official honor on South Africans and foreigners who have contributed to South Africa, was to be held on April 27, a holiday commemorating the first all-race elections in 1994 that marked the end of apartheid.

Police in Durban say six people died in attacks in the area, and the country's Sunday Times newspaper published photographs of a fatal attack in the Johannesburg area on a Mozambican man.

More than 300 people have been arrested in the last three weeks since influential Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini, an ally of President Zuma, said foreigners should leave the country, local media reported.

Zwelithini on Monday denied whipping up xenophobic hatred.

"This violence directed at our brothers and sister is shameful," he told a tribal gathering of Zulus in Durban. "I'm certain that the people who were listening to my speech (last month), understand Zulu well and did not need interpretation."

According to census data, South Africa has an estimated 1.7 million foreigners living within its borders, though many claim the figure to be much higher.

Thousands of immigrants from countries like Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique have fled to refugee camps. Some of them spoke to Reuters from a packed camp outside Johannesburg, where armed police patrolled the camp's perimeter, fenced with razor wire.

Tendayi Chimukako said he had left his home country of Zimbabwe because of its economic collapse. "There are no jobs, even the food is hard to get," he said. "If I go back to Zimbabwe I will starve."

Zuma and his colleagues in the ANC, the anti-apartheid party once led by the late Nelson Mandela, have condemned the violence and urged South Africans not to vent their frustrations at foreigners.

AP - Reuters