PHOTOS: HOW EMMANUEL SITHOLE WAS KILLED




 At the day clinic less than 100m away they could not help him. The doctor scheduled to be on duty did not show up because he was a foreigner and feared being a victim of xenophobia.
It began on Friday night when mobs blockaded Arkwright Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in Alexandra, with rubble and burning tyres. Foreign-owned shops' roofs were ripped open and metal gates torn away as looters went on the rampage.




Outside one spaza shop, a man in a black corduroy jacket and red shirt was walking along the road.
Suddenly a young man dressed in a grey tracksuit jacket beat him over the head with a wrench. The red-shirt man tried to fend off the blows, his arms raised. He stumbled back, falling into rubbish strewn by the roadside. The blows with the wrench rained down. Then the bludgeoning stopped and the man with the wrench moved away.





Along the way the man was flailing wildly, sitting up, lying down, wincing with pain. The wound to his chest was gushing now.

At Edenvale Hospital a lone gurney stood at the entrance. The porters sat in a room with tinted windows. Oatway pleaded for help. The man in the car was critical, he said.

Slowly one porter rose and scribbled in a book. Then the other, both now ambling towards the hospital entrance. Inside the car the red-shirt man looked lifeless.



"He's dead. We can't take him," one porter pronounced.
There was no pulse. Then a gag reflex. He's alive.
 Inside the ICU, doctors compressed his chest, massaging his heart. After nearly seven minutes a ventilator was used. Shortly after 9am Emmanuel Sithole was pronounced dead. He was Mozambican. The stab wound to his chest had penetrated his heart.

In his pockets, R285 and 10c in change and a cellphone. His phone would ensure he did not die nameless.

On his wrist, three armbands read: "United for Bafana."

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