Standing in the middle of this football field that has been turned into a refugee camp overnight in Chartsworth, one cannot help but feel ashamed of being South African.
There are white and green tents dotted around housing destitute African migrant families who fled the violence meted out them by their South African hosts.
Two weeks ago locals began attacking and looting properties owned by fellow Africans calling them "kwerekwere", a derogatory word in South Africa for African migrants.
I did not even have to ask Memory Mahlatini, who works as a nanny, what happened to her because her story was written all over her face.
'We are scared'
Her eyes alone made me look down in shame as she explained how a group of South Africans came to her rented home last Monday evening just as they were preparing to sleep and demanded that they go back to where they came from.
Hundreds of foreigners have been forced to flee the violence in South Africa
While taunting Ms Mahlatini and her husband, electrician Innocent Chazi, the crowd were banging doors saying "shaya, shaya", which means "beat, beat" in Zulu.
Ms Mahlatini said that their four children - Melissa 11, Milton, who is eight, and three-year-old twins Modify and Mollify - began to cry.
They left the children with their South African neighbour and they fled.
Ms Mahlatini said: "We are scared and we don't know where to go."
Foreigners queue for food provided by local community members at the sports field in Isipingo, south of Durban
The displaced people rely on food handouts supplied by the local community
It was getting dark as Ms Mahlatini told me this numbing tale whilst queuing for some soup and bread prepared by sympathetic locals in Chartsworth.
Elsewhere on the football field some of the displaced are huddled around small fires to keep warm. They marquees where they sleeps have been supplied by the local authorities.
The camp houses at least 1,500 people who lost everything in attacks when their properties were ransacked; they are left with what they could carry on their backs.
The aftermath of a ransacked shop
Properties and businesses have been looted in this latest outbreak of violence
This part of the country is particularly beautiful with green sugar cane-covered hills.
But when so many stories of pain are repeated again and again somehow it diminishes the beauty of the Zulu kingdom.
'It is criminal'
It is believed that this latest round of xenophobic attacks comes in the wake of alleged comments by Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini telling migrants to go home - although the he says he was mistranslated.
He blamed the media for deliberately distorting his speech in order to sell newspapers.
President Jacob Zuma has condemned the violence and has established a team of ministers to put an end to it.
The president, like many anti-apartheid activists, was hosted by other African countries while in exile.
And there is some irony that that solidarity is not working the other way.
Dennis John, a local pastor and camp volunteer, explained why he was helping out: "It is said because we are Africans.
"We are supposed to take care of each other. It is criminal the way we treat our own."
There are white and green tents dotted around housing destitute African migrant families who fled the violence meted out them by their South African hosts.
Two weeks ago locals began attacking and looting properties owned by fellow Africans calling them "kwerekwere", a derogatory word in South Africa for African migrants.
I did not even have to ask Memory Mahlatini, who works as a nanny, what happened to her because her story was written all over her face.
'We are scared'
Her eyes alone made me look down in shame as she explained how a group of South Africans came to her rented home last Monday evening just as they were preparing to sleep and demanded that they go back to where they came from.
Hundreds of foreigners have been forced to flee the violence in South Africa
While taunting Ms Mahlatini and her husband, electrician Innocent Chazi, the crowd were banging doors saying "shaya, shaya", which means "beat, beat" in Zulu.
Ms Mahlatini said that their four children - Melissa 11, Milton, who is eight, and three-year-old twins Modify and Mollify - began to cry.
They left the children with their South African neighbour and they fled.
Ms Mahlatini said: "We are scared and we don't know where to go."
Foreigners queue for food provided by local community members at the sports field in Isipingo, south of Durban
The displaced people rely on food handouts supplied by the local community
It was getting dark as Ms Mahlatini told me this numbing tale whilst queuing for some soup and bread prepared by sympathetic locals in Chartsworth.
Elsewhere on the football field some of the displaced are huddled around small fires to keep warm. They marquees where they sleeps have been supplied by the local authorities.
The camp houses at least 1,500 people who lost everything in attacks when their properties were ransacked; they are left with what they could carry on their backs.
The aftermath of a ransacked shop
Properties and businesses have been looted in this latest outbreak of violence
This part of the country is particularly beautiful with green sugar cane-covered hills.
But when so many stories of pain are repeated again and again somehow it diminishes the beauty of the Zulu kingdom.
'It is criminal'
It is believed that this latest round of xenophobic attacks comes in the wake of alleged comments by Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini telling migrants to go home - although the he says he was mistranslated.
He blamed the media for deliberately distorting his speech in order to sell newspapers.
President Jacob Zuma has condemned the violence and has established a team of ministers to put an end to it.
The president, like many anti-apartheid activists, was hosted by other African countries while in exile.
And there is some irony that that solidarity is not working the other way.
Dennis John, a local pastor and camp volunteer, explained why he was helping out: "It is said because we are Africans.
"We are supposed to take care of each other. It is criminal the way we treat our own."
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