Flames of Hate (South Africa)

On 18 May 2008 Halden Krog was covering the xenophobic violence that had been sweeping South Africa.

Photographers had been working day and night as bands of thugs terrorized settlements - beating, stabbing and torching the homes of residents whose only crime was being a "foreigner" while the politicians and leaders were silent - none of them standing up to condemn what was happening. 

It was late afternoon when Krog heard  that someone had been set alight in Ramaphosa (east of Johannesburg). At the scene, he saw Mozambican national Ernesto Nhamwuave struggling beneath a burning mattress as emergency service workers and police tried to extinguish the flames. 

Upon publication, outrage swept across a nation that we were once again seeing intolerance and brutality that many believed should have remained in the country’s Apartheid past. 

During the late eighties and early nineties, South Africans had become desensitized to endless images of violence and by the time of Nelson Mandela’s inauguration in 1994 people were only too ready to believe him when he said: "Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another." But 14 years later the nation was seeing it repeated. 

Nhamwuave died in hospital later that afternoon. His body was transported to his home in Mozambique.