A STREET vendor from Mozambique, Emmanuel Sithole, lay begging for his life in a gutter as four men beat him and stabbed him in the heart with a long knife. Images of his murder have shaken South Africa, already reeling from a wave of attacks on foreigners, mostly poor migrants from the rest of Africa. Soldiers were deployed on April 21st to Alexandra, a Johannesburg township, and other flashpoints to quell the violence, though only after seven people had been killed. Thousands of fearful foreigners, many from Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, have sought refuge in makeshift camps. Others have returned home.

South Africa has experienced such horrors before. During widespread anti-foreign violence in 2008, 62 people were killed and some 100,000 displaced. Photographs of the murder of another Mozambican man, Ernesto Nhamuave, whom a jeering mob burned alive in a squatter camp, led to declarations that such atrocities would never happen again. Yet no one was charged in Mr Nhamuave’s death: the case was closed after a cursory police investigation apparently turned up no witnesses (who were easily found by journalists earlier this year). The latest violence flared up in the Durban area earlier this month after King Goodwill Zwelithini, the traditional leader of the Zulus, reportedly compared foreigners to lice and said that they should pack up and leave.

His comments poured fuel on an already-smouldering fire. Jean Pierre Misago, a researcher at the African Centre for Migration and Society in Johannesburg, estimates that at least 350 foreigners have been killed in xenophobic violence since 2008. But Mr Misago says he has heard of only one conviction for murder. Attacks on foreigners and foreign-run businesses have been committed with virtual impunity; few cases ever make it to court. “Migrant lives are low-value lives,” says Marc Gbaffou, chairman of the African Diaspora Forum in Johannesburg.

So it is progress that four men have been arrested in connection with Mr Sithole’s murder. The police have been praised for responding better to the violence this time. Yet the attacks on foreigners will continue until the government acts decisively to stamp out the xenophobic attitudes that permeate South Africa, from the townships to the country’s top echelons.

When, after an outcry, King Zwelithini held an anti-xenophobia imbizo, or assembly, in a Durban stadium, some of the audience booed African ambassadors and religious leaders, chanted that foreigners should leave, and waved spears, axes and clubs. Meanwhile President Jacob Zuma, who has made only an emotionless plea to halt the violence, blamed journalists for publicising the death of Mr Sithole. “This makes us look bad,” he said. His eldest son, Edward (born in Swaziland), agreed foreigners should leave, saying that “we are sitting on a ticking time-bomb of them taking over the country.”

Such comments find a receptive audience. There is anger among poor South Africans at the lack of opportunities and change in the country, with frustrations often boiling over into violent street protests. Officially, unemployment runs at 24%, though the real figure is much higher, with more than half of under-25-year-olds out of work. Foreigners are an easy scapegoat, especially Somalis and Pakistanis resented for running successful small shops in the townships. The last census, in 2011, found 2.3m foreign-born people living in South Africa, though the number is probably higher. Some think there are as many as 5m-6m foreigners in a country of 54m.

The government’s response has often been to describe incidents as “criminality” rather than admit to a specific problem with violence against foreigners. Recent policies have, moreover, fostered a negative view of foreigners, such as the debate over proposals to prevent them from buying land. South Africa’s Institute of Race Relations, a liberal think-tank, points to the “absolute failure” of government policy to deal with unemployment and with deficiencies in the education system. It warns that xenophobic attacks may well increase as the economy weakens.

Across Africa, there have been boycotts of South African musicians, and demonstrations at South African embassies. South African lorries were stoned at a border crossing and Sasol, a petrochemicals firm, suspended some of its operations in central Mozambique and repatriated South African staff for fear of retaliatory attacks. Desmond Tutu, a former archbishop of Cape Town and an anti-apartheid stalwart, captured the mood of many: “Our rainbow nation that so filled the world with hope is being reduced to a grubby shadow of itself. The fabric of the nation is splitting.”