Crowds looted shops and businesses in South Africa on Wednesday, defying the government’s demand that a week of violence end more than 70 people, killing hundreds of businesses and closing a refinery.
Protests that followed the imprisonment of ex-president Jacob Zuma last week for failing to appear at a corruption investigation have been extended to looting and an outbreak of general anger over the difficulties and inequality that persist 27 years after the end of apartheid.
Shopping malls and warehouses have been searched or set on fire in several cities, mostly in Zuma’s home in the province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), the country’s largest city Johannesburg and the surrounding Gauteng province. But overnight it is spreading to two other provinces – Mpumalanga, just east of Gauteng and the Northern Cape, police said in a statement.
A Reuters photographer saw several shops looted in the town of Hammersdale, Mpumalanga, on Wednesday. Local TV stations meanwhile showed more looting of shops in South Africa’s largest township Soweto and in the port city of Durban. South Africa’s largest SAPREF refinery in Durban has been temporarily shut down due to the unrest, an official said on Wednesday.
Aerial footage showed hundreds of people looting a large mall and hauling away large boxes of goods. A woman was seen throwing her child from the first floor of a building to save her from fire after shops under her apartment were set on fire. The child landed safely with a group of people on the street.
The UN in South Africa expressed concern that the violence was disrupting the transport of workers and medical staff and caused a shortage of food, medicine and other important products.
“This will exacerbate the already social and economic difficulties caused by unemployment, poverty and inequality in the country,” it said in a statement on Tuesday night. Security officials said on Tuesday that the government was working to stop the spread of violence and looting.
The National Prosecutor’s Office has said it will punish those caught and looting or destroying property, a threat that has so far done little to deter them. The armed forces reported that they sent 2,500 soldiers to help the overwhelmed police. But those numbers are dwarfed by the more than 70,000 troops deployed to carry out last year’s coronavirus lock-in, and only a handful of soldiers were seen at some malls.
The furious unrest only erupted on Friday after Zuma began serving a 15-month period of contempt, after snubbed a probe into corruption that colored his nine years in power.
“The total number of people who have lost their lives since the protests began … has risen to 72,” police said in a statement late Tuesday. Most of the deaths “relate to congestion that occurred during looting of shops”, it says. Others were linked to shootings and explosions of ATMs. The number of arrests has increased to 1,234, although many thousands have been involved in the robberies.
Earlier TV images showed dozens of women, some wearing bathrobes, men and even children walking into a butcher in Soweto and coming out balancing heavy boxes of frozen meat on their heads or shoulders. Police showed up three hours later and fired rubber bullets. Eventually, soldiers followed.
Looters who spoke to Agence France-Presse (AFP) said they were in a hurry or saw the chance to alleviate a life damaged by poverty.
“I’m really not worried about Zuma. He’s a corrupt old man who deserves to be in jail,” said a 30-year-old man who works in a car wash. He admitted that he “took things from the store for my mother” – pots, meat and food in stainless steel.
In his nationwide speech Monday night, Ramaphosa slammed “opportunistic acts of crime, with groups of people creating chaos just as a protection against looting and theft.”
“The path of violence, looting and anarchy only leads to more violence and devastation,” Ramaphosa said. The President of the African Union Commission condemned “the outbreak of violence that has led to the killing of civilians and frightening scenes of looting, and” called for “an urgent restoration of order.”
The largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, announced on Tuesday that they would file criminal charges against Zuma’s children and the leader of the Left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Julius Malema. In a statement, the party accused them of using “social media to express comments that appear to encourage and stimulate violence and looting.”
Once known as the “President of Teflon”, Zuma was jailed on June 29 by the Constitutional Court for ordering a commission to investigate the transplant spread during his administration. He began serving on Thursday after submitting to authorities. He is trying to have the decision overturned.
Zuma, 79, is a former anti-apartheid fighter who spent 10 years in prison in the infamous Robben Island prison outside Cape Town. He rose in democratic South Africa to vice president and then president, before being fired by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in 2018 when scandals spread. But he is still popular with many poor South Africans, especially grassroots members of the ANC, who portray him as a defender of the disadvantaged. South Africa is deep in an economic disease with crippling high unemployment. Economic activity had already been hit hard by restrictions to stop the spread of coronavirus.
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