IMMIGRANTS clashed with xenophobic marchers in the South African capital Pretoria yesterday as the ruling ANC and trade unions condemned the violence.

Police used stun grenades, rubber bullets and water cannon as they fought to separate the anti-foreigner mob from a counterprotest by immigrants.

Police Commissioner Khomotso Phalane said 136 people had been arrested in the previous 24 hours.

The march from Pretoria’s western Atteridgeville township to the city centre followed two weeks of violence by locals against migrants from other African countries and south Asia.

President Jacob Zuma, his ANC movement and allied union federation Cosatu all denounced the unrest, which resembled attacks in 2008 that left 62 people dead.

Mr Zuma acknowledged concerns about high unemployment — which stands at over 26 per cent — and rampant crime but cautioned: “It is wrong to brand all non-nationals as drug dealers or human traffickers.”

He said the Department of Home Affairs would crack down on bosses hiring illegal immigrants, “which is dangerous as it pits locals against non-nationals.”

The alliance had already accused the liberal opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party of inciting the riots.

In December, the DA mayor of Johannesburg, Herman Mashaba, blamed illegal immigrants for crime and told them to get out of “his” city.

ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa noted the “bitter irony” of the DA “‘condemning xenophobic violence’ in Gauteng when it was the reckless statements of Mr Mashaba that lit the tinderbox of hatred in the first place.”

Cosatu’s Gauteng provincial chair Amos Monyela called on all citizens “to desist from these heinous actions against our African brothers and sisters.

“We want to remind all citizens that, during the liberation struggle, our forebears found protection outside South Africa until political freedom was attained.”

He said Mr Mashaba’s “populist rhetoric and posturing is meant to pander to people’s basest nationalistic instincts” and could be driven by a “regime-change agenda.”

Mr Monyela also gave his support to hundreds of workers who marched in Johannesburg on Thursday against Mr Mashaba’s decision to add to the unemployment crisis by cancelling a scheme that created 8,000 jobs.

The city mayor has vowed to press criminal damage charges after protesters forced their way into the town hall.