Provincial police in the Western Cape clarify the circumstances surrounding the murder of 19-year-old Nhlamulo Sambo, distancing it from recent anti-immigration protests.
Provincial police in the Western Cape have said that the fatal stabbing of a South African teenager in Mossel Bay was a criminal matter and not related to the recent anti-immigration protests in the area.
At least two Mozambican nationals were killed in the protest-related unrest.
This follows widely circulated social media videos featuring the mother of 19-year-old Nhlamulo Sambo. In the footage, she claimed her son, mistaken for a foreigner, was singled out and attacked because he spoke Xitsonga within a largely isiXhosa-speaking community.
However, Western Cape Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Thembisile Patekile stated that initial detective work points to a housebreaking incident rather than ethnic profiling or xenophobia.
