The death toll from two weeks of anti-immigrant violence in South Africa rose to 50 on Sunday as concerns mounted for an estimated 35,000 people who have been displaced by the backlash. The Red Cross in South Africa said it is caring for 25,000 destitute people around violence hotspot Johannesburg with another 10,000 sheltering at community centres and police stations in the tourist hub of Cape Town.
Police said 50 had died in the wave of murders, rapes and looting in the Johannesburg region, which began on May 11 before spreading nation-wide. An estimated 700 people have been arrested.
"The death toll is now at 50," a police spokesman for the Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg and Pretoria, told AFP, saying the revised figure came as "a few bodies were picked up here and there after the violence."
As thousands headed for the borders to return home, a growing humanitarian crisis was developing domestically as hordes of foreigners fled their slum homes and poured into police stations, community centres and churches.
Sunday newspapers made for alarming reading, with The Sunday Times headlining with "It's a State of Emergency" and The Sunday Independent front-page announcing "Ethnic Cleansing, SA Style."
National police spokesman spokesman Dennis Adriao said there was fresh violence in four provinces overnight, but that there had been no new fatalities.
"In the four provinces, it has been mainly looting of shops and burning of shacks," he told AFP, adding that 91 arrestes had been made in the 24-hour period leading up to 6 am (0400 GMT) on Sunday.
The city of Cape Town revealed Sunday the magnitude of the problems they face in caring for an estimated 10,000 people who have been displaced. Violence spread to slums around the picturesque tourist hub last week.
"The number of people in civic centre halls yesterday was 7,120," said opposition councillor JP Smith, who chairs the city's safety committee.
"There is probably at least half as much in private halls so we are probably looking at about 10,000."
Aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, warned Saturday of the danger of illness among the displaced and said the government needed to make a decision on how victims would be looked after.
Vimla Pillay, executive director of the Trauma Centre, an organisation providing counselling to victims in Cape Town, says the victims are devastated.
"They had high hopes about South Africa, but many of them are saying they want to go to other countries," she said.
President Thabo Mbeki, facing increasing criticism of his handling of the crisis, bowed to pressure to call in troops on Wednesday after a request for support from the embattled police force.
He called the violence a "humiliating disgrace for our nation" on Saturday as more than 2,000 people marched in central Johannesburg to protest against xenophobia.
The president faced a front-page demand from national newspaper the Sunday Times to step down.
"Throughout the crisis, arguably the most grave, dark and repulsive moment in the life of our young nation, Mbeki has demonstrated that he no longer has the heart to lead," it said
Soldiers were sent on to Johannesburg's streets on Thursday for the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994. They have been providing logistical support and back-up during search and arrest operations.
Foreigners in South Africa, many of whom have fled economic meltdown in neighbouring Zimbabwe, are being blamed for sky-high crime rates and depriving locals of jobs.
The unrest is seen as a result of policy failures to address critical housing shortages, illegal immigration and the poverty-ridden conditions in the slum areas that surround South Africa's cities.