Over 200 dead in riots in South Africa after Zuma’s arrest

by time news

Time.news – It rose to over 200 the number of people who died in the riots that have been shaking South Africa for a week, where the incarceration of former president Jacob Zuma, supported by the poorest sections of the population, sparked a wave of fires and looting. The government reported the sad balance.

32 people have died in the Johannesburg area. Another 180 people have died in the eastern province of Kwazulu-Natal. Riots that accompanied the incarceration of former South African president Jacob Zuma.

The situation in the KwaZulu-Natal province remains unstable. In the provincial capital Durban, llong queues have formed with the reopening of shopping centers but only six items can be purchased per person because the shops have suffered heavy looting. It is still difficult to assess the overall material losses caused by theft and destruction.

Defense Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said he wanted to deploy 25,000 soldiers in the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, the epicenter of the violence. About 2,200 individuals were stopped by the police. From the authorities, there are appeals not to take justice on their own against the looters. For the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, “it is clear” that the wave of violent riots and massive looting that South Africa has experienced in recent days has been “instigated” and warned that its government will not allow “anarchy and chaos”.

“It is quite clear that all these incidents of rioting and looting were instigated, there were instigators, there were people who planned and coordinated them“, the president denounced during his first visit to the devastated areas, in particular in the coastal city of Durban, in the east of the country, one of the areas most affected by violence.

Speaking to the press, against the backdrop of a massive military and police presence, Ramaphosa also has assuming they should have acted “faster” in the face of the wave of vandalism launched after the incarceration of former South African President Zuma.

The situation in South Africa has “completely stabilized”Reuters reported, citing Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, according to whom the protests and looting that shook the country for a week are over. South Africa’s two main highways, including the N3 connecting the provinces of Gauteng and Kwa-Zulu Natal, have been reopened and are fully operational.

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