A graphic video depicting a group of South Africans setting alight a group of bound young people, initially believed to be foreigners, after dousing them in fuel, has gone viral.
Saturday's development comes on the back of a series of incidents reported by local media, and after the South African Human Rights Council, a human rights body in the country, along with other concerned parties raised an alarm on Thursday about renewed attacks on foreign migrants in the country.
They called on the South African government to condemn the attacks.
"We are still to hear top members of government condemning the current xenophobic violence," Marc Gbaffou, chairman of the African Diaspora Forum (ADF), wrote in an open letter.
"We cannot discriminate, not in this sort, not any more."
Despite the resurgence of violent attacks on foreigners migrants in South Africa, the government is yet to acknowledged that the violence may be xenophobic in nature.
The government has instead attributed the attacks to "crime" and criminal behaviour.
Local media has reported that hundreds of foreigners have, since March 30, been seeking refuge at local police stations in the city of Isipingo, south of coastal city Durban.
One woman has been shot dead after her shop was looted and another man was beaten during an anti-xenophobia march.
The latest incident occurred on Friday when a foreigner-owned shop was petrol-bombed.
This is not the first time that xenophobic attacks have erupted in South Africa. In May 2008, 62 people were killed in attacks that swept across the country.
The video , trending on the social media website Twitter since the early hours of the morning, in South Africa, Kenya and in the UK, along with the hashtag #XenophobiaSA, shows the victims surrounded by people jeering the attackers on as they are set alight
Standing in the middle of this football field that has been turned into a refugee camp overnight in Chartsworth, one cannot help but feel ashamed of being South African.
There are white and green tents dotted around housing destitute African migrant families who fled the violence meted out to them by their South African hosts.
Two weeks ago locals began attacking and looting properties owned by fellow Africans, calling them "kwerekwere", a derogatory word in South Africa for African migrants.
I did not even have to ask Memory Mahlatini, who works as a nanny, what happened to her because her story was written all over her face.
'We are scared'
Her eyes alone made me look down in shame as she explained how a group of South Africans came to her rented home last Monday evening just as they were preparing to sleep and demanded that they go back to where they came from.
While taunting Ms Mahlatini and her husband, electrician Innocent Chazi, the crowd were banging doors saying "shaya, shaya", which means "beat, beat" in Zulu.
Ms Mahlatini said that their four children - Melissa 11, Milton, who is eight, and three-year-old twins Modify and Mollify - began to cry.
They left the children with their South African neighbour and they fled.
Ms Mahlatini said: "We are scared and we don't know where to go."
It was getting dark as Ms Mahlatini told me this numbing tale whilst queuing for some soup and bread prepared by sympathetic locals in Chartsworth.
Elsewhere on the football field, some of the displaced are huddled around small fires to keep warm. The marquees where they sleep have been supplied by the local authorities.
The camp houses at least 1,500 people who lost everything when their properties were ransacked; they are left with what they could carry on their backs.
This part of the country is particularly beautiful with green sugar cane-covered hills.
But when so many stories of pain are repeated again and again, somehow it diminishes the beauty of the Zulu kingdom.
'It is criminal'
It is believed that this latest round of xenophobic attacks comes in the wake of alleged comments by Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini telling migrants to go home - although he says he was mistranslated.
He blamed the media for deliberately distorting his speech in order to sell newspapers.
President Jacob Zuma has condemned the violence and has established a team of ministers to put an end to it.
The president, like many anti-apartheid activists, was hosted by other African countries while in exile.
And there is some irony that that solidarity is not working the other way.
Dennis John, a local pastor and camp volunteer, explained why he was helping out: "It is sad because we are Africans.
"We are supposed to take care of each other. It is criminal the way we treat our own."
Yemin Ebiyemi Egere - Rest In Peace . Amen
