President F.W. de Klerk met Wednesday with with Desmond Tutu and other church leaders to discuss how to end black feuds in Natal province that have killed about 400 people in the past two months. In the latest violence in South Africa's black townships, 12 more people were reported killed and 200 injured since Monday night. ``The situation in Natal has reached proportions which are beyond human understanding and endurance,'' the South African Council of Churches said in a separate statement. The church council, made up of most major Protestant denominations, called ``on all people to use Holy Week ... through Easter Sunday to focus on prayer and fasting for the people of Natal in particular and South Africa as a whole.'' There were no immediate details on de Klerk's meeting with Archbishop Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and other leaders of the South African Council of Churches. Before the meeting, de Klerk said, ``I think the churches have a role to play in ending the violence in the country.'' The King Edward VIII Hospital in the port city of Durban said it was so overcrowded due to the Natal fighting that it temporarily stopped admitting patients in need of surgery, even emergency cases. ``We simply cannot carry out any more surgery,'' said the hospital superintendent, Dr. A.M. Seedat. ``We have reached a situation where we cannot take on a single extra patient.'' Other hospitals in the area also are near capacity. Eight blacks were killed, including six by police fire, in dozens of clashes in black townships across the country, police said Wednesday in a report covering 56 incidents since Monday night. Two hundred people were injured and dozens were arrested, police said. Government-run radio reported four more people died in feuding between black political factions in the Crossroads township outside Cape Town. About 4,000 people have died in the Natal fighting since 1986. The main combatants are supporters of the African National Congress, the country's leading anti-apartheid group, and Inkatha, a relatively conservative Zulu organization. Both organizations have large numbers of youthful supporters they cannot control. Criminal gangs and other bands have also taken advantage of the chaos to loot, burn and murder. Hernus Kriel, the planning and provincial affairs minister, toured the northern Natal battle zones Wednesday and announced a $100,000 aid package for the estimated 13,000 Zulu refugees. He said the government's plan for dealing with the crisis would be announced in the next week or two, but could take six or seven years to carry out. ``The first thing that strikes me is the poverty of these people,'' Kriel said. ``We will have to provide the infrastructure for such basic needs as water, sewerage and rubbish removal.'' The police commissioner, Gen. Johan van der Merwe, told Parliament the secret to ending unrest was to send more security forces into troubled areas. The minister of law and order, Adriaan Vlok, said policemen were resigning at the rate of 22 per day, double the rate of two months ago. He proposed urgent increases in pay and benefits.
