Migrant workers ransack Phola Park

In the middle of the night, a group of migrant workers aligned with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) ransacked the Phola Park squatter camp of East Rand leaving scores of people dead or injured. The attack lasted until the early hours of the morning forcing women and children to seek refuge in churches as helpless and poorly armed self styled defence units attempted to defend their community from their well-armed attackers. Over 1000 shacks were burned to the ground. Residents of Phola Park claimed that white men with blackened faces and masks assisted the migrant workers in this attack. Residents told the " Weekly Mail " reporters, who were at the Catholic Church near the scene, that police vehicles provided migrants with back up and they also threw grenades at the shacks. The Phola Park attack confirmed growing reports that the Security Forces in South Africa were collaborating with IFP migrant workers to damage ongoing peace talks between the African National Congress (ANC) and the government. The Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) and former IFP members confirmed reports that the security forces and the IFP members were involved in such attacks. Furthermore, they confirmed reports that a group of IFP men were flown to Caprivi, Namibia to receive military training that would be used to cause destabilisation in the country and to weaken the ANC.