MOSSEL BAY, South Africa (AFP) — The charred remains of torched homes scarred a crowded settlement of shacks where South Africa’s anti-migrant tensions exploded into violence, leaving two Mozambicans dead and hundreds fleeing for their lives.

Other homes attacked in a recent rampage in an informal area of the southern coastal town of Mossel Bay stood in ruins, already looted, or were being dismantled by locals planning to take them over.

“I’m taken, Xhosa” was scrawled on the thin doors of a few shacks in the sprawling Giyani settlement, a signal that they are occupied by South Africans from the Xhosa ethnic group and should be left alone.