With newfound calm and opportunities in the land of their birth, it's no surprise that many Somalis who had fled to South Africa are returning to Somalia or planning to do so. Another motivating factor is the large number of Somalis in South Africa being killed by local thugs.

While neither the police nor the Department of Home Affairs could say yesterday how many have been killed in the province in the past month, local Somalis estimate the death toll to be between 14 and 25 in the Cape metropole alone...

...A spokesman for the community, from Langa, who asked not to be named, said he counted 25 murders in the province during the past month..."Every day someone is killed. My cousin was murdered in Khayelitsha two weeks ago and now I have no one. I don't know what to do. The rest of the members of my tribal clan are on their way back to Somalia, but I can't afford it. They said if they are going to get killed anyway, they would rather die at home near their families. The doctor said I have become sick with stress," he said.

A Somali shopkeeper in Khayelitsha, Nansh Mohamed, said: "We fled from war and came to democratic South Africa, thinking our lives would be secure, but it's not so. We are unsafe here and we cannot defend ourselves as we did at home, where we fought the militias. We are the most targeted foreigners in the country.

"Mohamed said the murders were most probably because of "business jealousy" from locals who perceived them as rich.

"In Somalia, if someone murders they are killed. People don't steal from each other. Here, if someone is arrested for robbing you, you see him back on the street the next week and you don't know if he will come back to kill you."