I ran to the nearest police officer and said: “The locals say they’re burning a person at the other intersection.”

Officers leapt into a Casspir and a Nyala, and drove through the debris and barricades in the road.

I ran after them, with other photographers following.

Two hundred meters down the road we found the first man. He had been severely beaten and was semi- conscious. Police thought he was dead, but later realized he wasn’t.

About 25m from him a man was on his knees. There was a mattress covering him, and it was on fire.

He, too, was alight.

Police threw the mattress off him and kicked sand onto him to put out the flames. Another officer ran over with a fire extinguisher, pointed it at him and extinguished the flames. Other officers radioed for medical help.

The man was alive, but barely. He groaned, but he could not speak.

It was all over in 20 seconds.

There was a concrete pillar lying near him, splattered with blood. We can only imagine what was done to him before he was set alight.

The police stayed with him until the paramedics arrived, doing what they could . But residents gathered at the scene were laughing.

Kim Ludbrook, a photographer, admonished them, and we reminded them this was human being and that what had happened was barbaric.

Still they laughed.

The burn victim, whose name has not been released, died last night in hospital.

A man was ‘necklaced’ in Reiger Park as marauding gangs hunt down foreigners in the streets. Heavily armed police fought a ferocious battle across the greater Johannesburg area yesterday as xenophobia-related attacks spread like wildfire.

Since Friday, 12 people have been killed in attacks by rampaging South Africans trying to purge foreigners from informal settlements and central city districts in Johannesburg and the East Rand, following violence in the Alexandra and Diepsloot townships.

By late afternoon marauding gangs roved Johannesburg’s streets setting alight shops owned by foreigners in Jeppestown, Cleveland and Malvern, and engaging in running battles with police. Earlier, mobs attacked foreigners in Hillbrow.

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“Is this how you South Africans are going to treat foreigners when they come here for the World Cup?” asked one irate Zimbabwean, identifying himself only as Charles.

“This is a shit country. It’s a shame to the rest of the world that they are allowing the World Cup to take place here. South Africans seem to think that no one’s life is precious.”

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