SA will protect foreigners: Zuma

President Jacob Zuma on Friday assured high commissioners and ambassadors that foreigners in South Africa will be protected.

"We will ensure that all our people, including foreign nationals, always feel enveloped by an abiding sense of security wherever they are in the country," he said in a speech prepared for delivery.

"In this regard, our law enforcement agencies will certainly close the net on the brazen criminality which was displayed by some unruly elements against foreign nationals in our townships a few weeks ago."

He was speaking at a ceremony where he received letters of credence from ambassadors and high commissioners-designate.

Siphiwe Mahori, 14, was shot dead in Snake Park, Soweto on January 19, allegedly by Somalian Alodixashi Sheik Yusuf, when a group of people tried to break into his shop.

This led to days of looting of foreign-owned shops in the township and other parts of Gauteng in which at least seven people, including a one-month-old baby boy, were killed.

Four Ethiopians were attacked and wounded in their shop in Nsuze, near Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal.

Eleven countries presented their credentials to Zuma. They were Ghana, Nepal, India, Zimbabwe, Peru, Myanmar, Republic of Korea, Jamaica, Japan, Ukraine, and South Sudan.

Zuma said he was pleased to be accepting credentials from countries outside the India, Brazil, South Africa (Ibsa) and Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Brics) groups.