Violence and looting do not stop in South Africa: there are 72 dead and the government has deployed 2,500 soldiers

South African stores and warehouses were hit by looting on Tuesday, for the fifth day in a row, despite the deployment of soldiers by the president of the country, Cyril Ramaphosa, to try to contain the violence that has already killed 72 people.

Looting broke out in the economic capital of Johannesburg and the southeastern province of KwaZulu-Natal, while the South African opposition accused radical groups of fomenting unrest.

The deployed armed forces 2,500 soldiers to help the police stop the riots.

But that number seems insignificant compared to the more than 70,000 troops mobilized to enforce last year’s lockdown against the coronavirus.

Turbulence erupted last Friday after Former President Jacob Zuma will begin serving his 15-month sentence for contempt after refusing to testify in a corruption probe during his nine years in office.. The weekend extended to Gauteng Province, where Johannesburg is located.

“The total number of people who have lost their lives since the start of these protests (…) has risen to 72”Police said Tuesday night in a statement. Most of the deaths “are due to jostling during incidents of looting of shops“He added.

Other deaths have occurred by ATM shootings and explosions.

The number of detainees rose to 1.234, although several thousand participated in the wave of looting.

“For my mother”

Television footage showed dozens of women, men and even children walking into a butcher’s shop in Soweto and coming out with large boxes of frozen meat on their shoulders or heads.

The police arrived three hours later and rubber bullets fired. Later, the army appeared.

In the slum of Alexandra, north of Johannesburg, hundreds of people walked in and out of a mall with products.

Looters who spoke to the news agency AFP they said they saw each other caught up in the uproar or seen an opportunity to relax a bit from their life of poverty.

“I don’t care about Zuma, he’s a corrupt old man who deserves to be in jail.”said a 30-year-old man who works as a car washer.

He admitted to having “I took things from the store for my mother”such as stainless steel casseroles, meat and provisions.

In Pietermaritzburg, the capital of KwaZulu-Natal, people carried new refrigerators through the bushes to a line of cars parked by the side of the road.

In Durban, aerial shots showed hundreds of people looting a shopping mall, from where they came out with big boxes of products.

Woman was seen throwing baby from second floor of apartment building to save him from fire, after the shops on the ground floor were set on fire. The baby was safely cared for by people on the street.

“Anarchy”

In a speech across the country on Monday night, Ramaphosa has attacked “opportunistic acts of crime, with groups of people inciting chaos as a screen for looting and theft.”.

“The path of violence, plunder and anarchy only leads to more violence and devastation”added.

The African Union Commission condemned “the increase in violence which has resulted in the death of civilians and shocking scenes of looting”, and called for “An urgent restoration of order”.

The largest opposition party, the Democratic alliance, announced on Tuesday that will file a complaint against Zuma’s children and the leader of the Left Fighters for Economic Freedom, Julius Malema.

The party accused them of having used “Social networks to express comments that seem to encourage and incite violence and looting”, according to a statement.

Zuma was sentenced on June 29 by the Constitutional Court for ignore an order to appear before a commission of inquiry into corruption in your government.

He started serving his sentence last week after surrendering to authorities, while seeking to overturn the sentence.

Popular chef

Zuma, 79, was a anti-apartheid fighter who spent 10 years in prison in Robben Island Prison, near Cape Town.

In democratic South Africa, he became vice-president and then president, before being deposed by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in 2018 as scandals multiplied.

Yet Zuma keeps his popularity with many poor South Africans, especially among the grassroots activists of the ANC, who see it as a defender of the marginalized.

South Africa is sunk in a deep economic malaise, with high unemployment rates. Economic activity had already been hit hard by restrictions aimed at containing the coronavirus.

(With information from AFP)

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