While community leaders in Philippi East's Marikana informal settlement quibble over the cause of Wednesday's attacks on foreign business owners, the victims testify to long-standing xenophobic undercurrents in the community.
Thirty-two-year-old Hassan Ahmed did not know the meaning of most of the slurs shouted at him on Wednesday afternoon as he fled for his life. But, as he ran the gauntlet of looters descending on his Cash 'n Carry in Lower Crossroads, one word brought him starkly back to the attacks he suffered in Khayelitsha in past years - "Voetsek!"
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