The Mozambique government said five of its nationals were killed in “xenophobic attacks” in South Africa at the weekend, with local police on Tuesday confirming two deaths.
The killings in the southern coastal town of Mossel Bay are the first to be officially linked to the latest wave of protests against illegal migrants sweeping South Africa.
The Mozambique government’s media office said in a statement late Monday that violence broke out on Friday, focused on Mossel Bay, about 380 kilometres (236 miles) east of Cape Town.
“Regrettably, seven Mozambican citizens have died, five of them as a direct consequence of the xenophobic attacks and the other two as a result of a road accident, when they were travelling in a private vehicle on their way back to Mozambique,” it said.
But the South African police told AFP only two Mozambique nationals were killed in Mossel Bay late Friday, declining to say whether they died in anti-migrant violence.
“It is not true that five people were killed,” Western Cape police spokesperson Brigadier Novela Potelwa said.
“Two Mozambicans lost their lives in the Asla Park informal settlement outside the town on Friday evening, one 27 yea -old and a 43 year old,” she said.
The region has seen protests against illegal migrants similar to demonstrations that have swept South Africa in recent weeks, notably in the financial capital Johannesburg and east coast city of Durban.