JOHANNESBURG: Shops and warehouses in South Africa were beaten by Tuesday’s looters to run fifth even though the president of Cyril Ramaphosa forces was used to try to extinguish the riots that had claimed 72 lives.
Because looting erupted in the economic capital of Johannesburg and the Southeast Province of KwaZulu-Natal, the main opposition South Africa accused the radical trigger riots.
The armed forces sent 2,500 troops to help extraordinary police.
But these figures were fierce by more than 70,000 soldiers deployed to enforce the Coronavirus key last year, and only a handful of soldiers seen in several shopping centers.
The raging hip first erupted last Friday after former President Jacob Zuma began serving a period of 15 months for insult, after sucking a probe into corruption which tarnished his power for nine years.
On weekends, it began to spread to Gauteng Province.
“The total number of people who have lost their lives from the beginning of this protest …
have increased to 72,” police said in a statement on Tuesday night.
Most deaths “relate to stampeded that occurred during the looting incidence of the store”, he said.
Others are associated with shootings and bank ATM explosions.
The number of arrests has increased to 1,234, although many thousands have been involved in Ransacking Spree.
The previous TV footage showed dozens of women, some wearing their dress dresses, men and even children walking to the butchers in Soweto, out balancing frozen meat boxes on their head or shoulders.
The police appeared three hours later and fired rubber bullets.
The army finally followed.
At Alexandra Township north of Johannesburg, hundreds of people flowed in and out of shopping centers, freely won groceries.
Looters who talk to AFP say they have been trapped in a hurry, or see the opportunity to alleviate a tiring life by poverty.
“I really don’t care about Zuma.
He is a corrupt old man who deserves to be in prison,” said a 30-year-old man who worked in car wash.
He claimed to “take items from the store for my mother” – stainless steel, meat and groceries.
In Pietermaritzburg, the capital of KwaZulu-Natal, people carry refrigerators box through bushes to the length of the car parked along the highway.
In Durban, air footage shows hundreds of people looting large shopping centers and deliver large items.
A woman was seen throwing her baby from the first floor of a building to save her from the fire after the shops under her apartment caught fire.
The child safely landed with a group of people on the road.
At the national address Monday night, Ramaphosa attacked “opportunistic crime actions, with groups of people who incited chaos only as a cover for looting and theft”.
“The path of violence, looting and anarchy, only leads to more violence and destruction,” said Ramaphosa.
The Chairperson of the African Union Commission condemned “a wave of violence that has resulted in the death of civilians and calms looting scenes”, calling “for urgent order recovery”.
The biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, announced Tuesday will file a criminal charges against Zuma children and leaders of left economic freedom (EFF), Julius Malema.
In a statement, parties accused them of using “social media to express comments that seem to encourage and incite violence and looting.” After being nicknamed “Teflon President”, Zuma submitted the term in prison on June 29 by the Constitutional Court to disputed the command to appear before the Commission investigated the graft that breeded under his rule.
He began serving the term on Thursday after surrendering to the authorities.
He tried to put aside the court.
Zuma, 79, is a former anti-apartheid fighters who spent 10 years in prison on the famous Robben Island in Jail Off Cape Town.
He rose in democratic South Africa for the Vice President and then the President, before being overthrown by the Ruling African National Congress (ANC) in 2018 as a breeding scandal.
But he remained popular among many poor South Africans, especially members of grassroots Anc, which described it as a disadvantaged defender.
South Africa is deep in the economic malaise, with a high unemployment rate.
Economic activities have been greatly influenced by restrictions to stop the spread of Coronavirus.