A policewoman assists a man who was set alight in Reiger Park, south of Johannesburg, yesterday. - AP

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP):

Emmerson Ziso fled hunger and repression in neighbouring Zimbabwe, but now he wants to go back. Even his violent, chaotic homeland seems a haven compared with Johannesburg, where weekend attacks on foreigners left at least 12 dead.

"Most of the Zimbabweans want to leave. It is better at home than here," said the former teacher who was chased out of his home by a mob early Sunday.

"It's spreading like wildfire and the police and the army can't control it," Ziso said, as he tried to help register about 500 people who sought refuge at the police station in Johannesburg's Cleveland area.

Foreigners accused

It was a scene repeated in other poor suburbs around the city. Angry residents accused foreigners - many of them Zimbabweans who had fled their own country's economic collapse - of taking scarce jobs and housing.

President Thabo Mbeki said Sunday that he would set up a panel of experts to investigate. African National Congress (ANC) President Jacob Zuma, who is likely to succeed Mbeki next year, condemned the attacks.

"We cannot allow South Africa to be famous for xenophobia," Zuma told a conference in Pretoria.

The weekend attacks come as the government tries to change South Africa's violent image ahead of the 2010 World Cup. South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world, recording an average of 50 murders each day.

Many in the ANC government took refuge in neighbouring countries during apartheid and are deeply embarrassed by the current violence, which has targeted immigrants who came to South Africa from other nations in the region.

Police spokesman Govindsamy Mariemuthoo said 12 people were killed. He said 200 people had been arrested on charges ranging from rape to robbery and public violence.

The Red Cross said at least 3,000 people were left destitute.

Worst violence

Police said the worst violence erupted after midnight Saturday in Cleveland and other run-down inner-city areas that are home to many immigrants. Two of the victims were burned and three others beaten to death. More than 50 were taken to hospitals with gunshot and stab wounds.

The situation remained tense along the main street through Cleveland and police had to use tear gas to disperse stick-wielding crowds trying to loot shops.

Photographs supplied by local newspapers captured horrific images of a man who was set on fire after a tyre soaked in gasolene was put around his neck. There was no immediate word on his condition.

'They must go'

One of the demonstrators in Cleveland, Michael Khondwane, said foreigners were to blame for South Africa's drug and crime scourge. He said the violence would send them "the message that they must go".

Johannesburg is South Africa's economic hub and home to hundreds of thousands of immigrants. Many of them are illegal, but many have also been here for more than a decade and possess South African identity documents.

There has been sporadic anti-foreigner violence for months, mainly aimed at stores run by Somalis accused of undercutting local store owners, but nothing that compares to the violence over the weekend.

Back injuries

Eric Goemaere, the head of Médecins Sans Frontiéres in South Africa, said his staff was helping to treat people with bullet wounds and back injuries from being thrown out of windows.

He called on the South African government to declare Zim-babweans as refugees and give them proper protection. "It's a crisis," he said.

There are believed to be up to three million Zimbabweans living in neighbouring South Africa who have fled the economic and political turmoil in their homeland.