The first instance of violence took place last Friday when former President Jacob Zuma started serving a 15-month term for contempt.
Johannesburg| Even after President Cyril Ramaphosa deployed the troops to try to quell unrest, stores and warehouses in South Africa were hit by looters Tuesday for a fifth day running. The violence has taken 72 lives till now, according to reports.
South Africa’s main opposition accused radicals of stoking the unrest as pillaging erupted in the economic capital of Johannesburg and the southeastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The armed forces were sending 2,500 soldiers to help the overwhelmed police, news agency AFP reported.
However, the numbers of troops deployed in response to this to this development have been dwarfed by the more than 70,000 troops deployed to enforce last year’s coronavirus lockdown, and only a handful of soldiers were seen at some shopping centres.
The first instance of violence took place last Friday when former President Jacob Zuma started serving a 15-month term for contempt, after he failed to testify before a judicial panel that’s probing graft during his rule.
By the weekend, the violence has started spreading to Gauteng province.
“The total number of people who have lost their lives since the beginning of these protests … has risen to 72,” the police said in a statement late Tuesday.
It said that most of the deaths “relate to stampedes that occurred during incidents of looting of shops”.
Others were linked to shootings and explosions of bank ATMs.
Although many thousands have been involved in the ransacking sprees, 1,234 have been reportedly arrested so far.
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