The shooting of Arthur, a Ghanaian footballer plying his trade in South Africa by South African Police, was not a direct xenophobic attack, but an excess of an attempt by the Police to quell one such attack, WhatsUp News has learnt.
Arthur was just passing by Kempton Park, in the city of Ekurhuleni in the Gauteng province, where a mob of rowdy South Africans were looting shops owned by foreigners as part of the recent wave of xenophobia.
The city Police’ response with live ammunition got out of control with some of the bullets ricocheting off a wall and hitting the Ghanaian in both legs, WhatsUp News sources explain.
Arthur, who is said to have been playing professional football in South Africa for close to two years, has since been admitted to the Life Groenkloof Hospital — a private hospital in Pretoria, by Ghana’s High Commissioner to South Africa, George Ayisi Boateng.
He is said to be responding to treatment.
However, Arthur’s shooting was the lesser of tragedies from the incident as four Nigerians were also shot in the scuffle. Two of them died on the spot while two have been admitted to hospital in critical condition.
The names of the Nigerians are unknown and it is not clear whether it was their shops that were being looted when the Police decided to disperse the crowd with live bullets.
The looting crowd had been rampaging as part of the recent wave of xenophobic attacks in South Africa. They are said to have been called to a meeting by a local politician, but nobody knows what the local politician told them.
Before the meeting would go anywhere, some of the people in the crowd had angrily left and were soon seen attacking shops owned by other Africans.
It was the local Police’ move to dispel the crowd with live bullets that led to pellets straying and hitting Arthur and the four Nigerians, sources say.
Meanwhile, the xenophobic attacks in by South Africans are threatening the country’s relations with other African countries. Reprisal rampages in Nigeria have forced South Africa to close its embassies there.