‘We are on the verge of eating each other’: South Africa vigilantes say they are ‘prepared to die’

Vigilantes have said they are ‘prepared to die’ defending shops from looters as South Africa‘s lawlessness entered its seventh consecutive day and the government mobilised 25,000 troops to quell the chaos. 

Armed locals started defending shops after thousands were ransacked in riots across the country after former president Jacob Zuma was jailed on Friday for failing to appear in court on corruption charges.  

At least 72 have so far died during the chaos, with police forces totally absent or in some cases, officers participating in looting. 

Vigilantes in Soweto have rallied around Maponya Mall, one of the few shopping centres still standing after 200 others were ransacked, defending it from looters in an effort to end the unrest.   

Nhlanhla Lux, 33, described the mall as Soweto’s ‘last elephant’ and vowed not to let it fall to rioters.

‘We are on the verge of eating each other’, he told the Financial Times. ‘I for one am prepared to die… we can’t sit back while the township economy dilapidates further’. 

It comes as the government said it would call out around 25,000 troops, including army reserves, to tackle the emergency – 10 times the number that it initially deployed. 

‘All reserve members are to report for duty at first light tomorrow morning 15 July 2021 at their respective units,’ army chief Lieutenant-General Lawrence Mbatha said in orders issued overnight as the unrest entered its sixth day. 

Looting continued on Thursday in KwaZulu-Natal province, but the streets of Johannesburg were calm as volunteers started to clean up the debris. 

On Wednesday, Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula told parliament she had submitted a request for ‘plus or minus’ 25,000 troops in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces, where security forces are struggling to quell the days of looting, arson and violence.

The request came after President Cyril Ramaphosa told leaders of political parties that parts of the country ‘may soon be running short of basic provisions’ following disruption to supply chains.

‘The next big crisis will be the threat to food security in KZN, along with the supply of medication and fuel,’ said John Steenhuisen, head of the opposition Demcratic Alliance.

‘Protecting these supply chains must be a priority of the… deployment.’  

Pillaging continued into Thursday in Durban, where a Reuters reporter saw crowds in the Mobeni neighbourhood rolling away trolleys loaded with maize meal and other looted staples.

Some loaded pick-up trucks – one such truck had to be abandoned as it had run out of fuel. Taxi drivers blockaded some roads to try to prevent further looting. 

In Johannesburg’s central business district and the township of Alexandra, both also hit hard by violence, the streets were calm and volunteers took part in cleanup operations.

Shopkeepers and other residents sifted through the debris, cleared up trash and assessed what remained of their ruined businesses.  

In Soweto, Councillor Mpho Moerane said about 300 volunteers were cleaning all the damaged shopping centers across the township. Two men were putting up steel doors on the entrance to a Shoprite liquor store in Bara Mall that was completely cleaned out and littered with broken glass.

At Diepkloof Mall in Soweto, South Africa’s biggest township and one of the worst affected areas, about 50 people swept up broken glass and packed empty shoe boxes into plastic rubbish bags, a Reuters reporter said.

Clothing stores like Mr Price, Rage and Ackermans were empty, with only clothing racks and naked mannequins scattered across the floor.

‘It’s heartbreaking. Very, very heartbreaking. Everything is gone. It’s going to take months to be back up again,’ said Ricardo Desousa, manager of a ransacked butcher shop in Soweto’s Bara Mall.

His staff were helping clean up the damage. ‘They’re not going to get paid,’ he said. ‘There’s no money.’

At a cleanup at the Jabulani shopping centre in Soweto, community leader Musa Mbele-Radebe, 30, told AFP, ‘The use of the army is quite good, because our people are quite scared of the army compared to the police.

‘It only took four soldiers to control a situation of a thousand [people] that was gathering in this mall.’   

As the crisis escalated, the armed forces on Monday said they were sending 2,500 troops to help restore order, though authorities claim 5,000 soldiers were mobilised. 

The figure was criticised by many as paltry, given that 70,000 soldiers were deployed last year to enforce a strict coronavirus lockdown. 

Jacob Zuma’s son urged looters to ‘do so responsibly’ and called for his father to be freed after South Africa’s lawlessness on Wednesday, the sixth consecutive day of chaos, amid fears of a ‘humanitarian crisis’ with food, fuel and Covid medicine shortages. 

Duduzane Zuma took to Instagram to call for his father to be freed and the Covid lockdown to end, claiming that with troops now deployed the country was ‘just one massacre away from a complete spiralling out of control.’

‘For the people that are protesting and looting, please do so carefully and please do so responsibly. Because you cannot hold people responsible for defending what they love,’ Zuma said. 

The 37-year-old, who has his own ambitions to run the country, said that ‘finger pointing’ was not going to help because the government must ‘feed the poor people that are looting’ as he blamed lockdown-fuelled economic inequity for the chaos.

But the raging unrest has lost any sense of its loose political origins, descending into wanton lawlessness, including gang shoot-outs in the streets, people queuing up with cars to loot warehouses and malls, and wealthy Indian and white South Africans forced to take up arms to protect their homes. 

A 13-year-old boy was shot dead at a mall outside Johannesburg on Wednesday during skirmishes between vigilante taxi drivers and looters.

And two police officers were caught on camera with their cars packed full of allegedly looted household supplies and even a flat-screen television. 

Now President Cyril Ramaphosa has promised to call up more soldiers after deploying 2,500 troops to bolster overrun police forces in in Johannesburg and Durban. But rioting has also spread to Mpumalanga, Northern Cape and Soweto.    

South Africans living in Britain have been left terrified for the safety of friends and family as the rioting sweeps the country. 

They have been hearing firsthand accounts from family members who are living in fear as the police and army struggle to regain control.

Dorset based Beauty therapist Janine Hornby was due to enroll her 14-year-old son at a boarding school in KZN this week but has scrapped her return.

She has spoken to family members who are mounting armed patrols around their neighbourhood and manning barricades to stop the looters and rioters from reaching their homes.

With many stores burned to the ground the big fear among residents is marauding gangs of looters will turn their attention to private homes.

Janine, 48, said: ‘It is complete anarchy, and I am terrified for my family and friends.

‘My brother-in-law Lance is among those who are standing guard at a barricade round the clock. They are all armed and they are there to stop the looters from coming close to their homes.

‘There are reports of the army helping out, but that has not really happened. The police are overwhelmed and cannot cope. So many people are afraid that the country will descend into civil war.’ 

Janine, who lives in Poole, said she had spoken with family members in KZN where she grew up and regularly visits.

‘I was due to go back at the weekend with my son Ethan so he could start at boarding school, but that is off. It is too dangerous, she said.

‘I am hearing terrible things. I spoke to my sister-in-law, and she said they all had sleepless nights worrying about what could happen. Many of the men have gone to stand on barricades to stop the rioters and looters from approaching homes.

‘They all have guns. It is anarchy with the shops being looted and then burned to the ground. There are all sort of horror stories going around that the rioters are trying to destroy electrical substations and water supplies.

‘Farms and livestock are also being destroyed and it all seems so organised.’ 

Janine, who has lived in the UK for 19 years has started a petition on Change.org calling for support and assistance for South Africa. More than 18,000 people have so far signed the petition.   

Meanwhile industry bosses, including fuel retailers and farmers, are warning of a ‘humanitarian crisis’ as the chaos means that, as well as the goods being stolen, major port cities like Durban are under siege and the country’s infrastructure is blockaded. 

Law-abiding citizens were pictured this morning lining up outside a supermarket in Hillcrest in KwaZulu-Natal, trying to stock up amid fears of food shortages caused by the pillaging.

The National Hospital Network, representing 241 public hospitals, has warned it is running out of oxygen and drugs for coronavirus patients – most of which are imported from Durban.    

On Wednesday, the king of South Africa’s Zulu community, the country’s largest ethnic group, appealed for an end to the unrest.

‘I call for peace,’ Misuzulu Zulu said in a maiden speech on state television. 

The violence ‘has brought great shame’ on the Zulu people,’ he said. 

‘This chaos is destroying the economy, and it is the poor who will suffer the most,’ he warned.  

The 46-year-old, who succeeded his father Goodwill Zwelithini who died in March, was flanked by the prime minister of the Zulu nation, Mangosuthu Buthelezi.

Speaking alternately in Zulu and English, the king said ‘my father’s people are committing suicide’ as he called for restraint and peace. 

‘What is even more saddening is that so many of those who are drawn to this lawlessness and criminality are members of the Zulu nation,’ the king said.

‘It has brought great shame upon us all… as fingers are pointed at my father’s people,’ he said speaking in English.

Zulus account for more than 11 million of South Africa’s 59 million people.

The monarch wields moral influence over them, but does not have executive power.

A 13-year-old boy named locally as Vuso Dlamini was shot dead during a skirmish between taxi drivers and a looting mob attempting to burn down a mall in Vosloorus, east of Johannesburg.

Conflicting reports said the teen was 13 or 14-years-old. Earlier the body of another looter was discovered behind the mall.  

A taxi drivers’ union has been defending the mall in the absence of police. One of the cab drivers told Times Live: ‘We shop and work here. This is our livelihood. No-one messes with that.’ 

One looter said she was doing it purely because of the economic impacts of the lockdown. Asked by a local TV reporter if she was stealing because of Zuma’s imprisonment, she said: ‘No, we’re looting because we have no food, we have no jobs because of the Covid lockdown.’ 

Last year, the country’s GDP slumped by 7 per cent – the largest decline in more than 40 years. The unemployment rate stands at 32.6 per cent, while youth unemployment has soared to a staggering 75 per cent. 

People living in neighbourhoods plagued by the rioting said they were terrified and could not sleep at night because of the constant gunfire.

One woman, preparing to make a 20-minute drive across Durban to visit her family, told the BBC she was worried she might not be able to get there because of blockades which have popped up along the main highways.

‘I am so scared,’ the woman, who asked not to be named, told the broadcaster.

‘It literally feels like being in a war zone with gunshots, fires and smoke going up everywhere for the last two days.’ 

Another resident, who also refused to be named, told the BBC that they are having to just sit back and watch the looting, hoping that the perpetrators don’t turn on their homes.

‘We are on fire,’ the man said. ”We’ve gone to a place where we are going to watch them stealing, we are not interfering with them – don’t harm us.’ 

The British and Irish Lions rugby team, which is touring the country, has been assured of their safety amid the deteriorating security situation. 

The Lions are scheduled to play three matches in Cape Town, starting against South Africa A on Wednesday, before returning to Johannesburg for two Tests that will complete the tour.

Lions coach Warren Gatland told an online news conference last week that he believed the second and third Tests would be switched to Cape Town. 

The king of South Africa’s Zulu community, the country’s largest ethnic group, called for an end to the unrest today.

‘I call for peace,’ Misuzulu Zulu said on state television. The violence ‘has brought great shame on all of us,’ he said, adding ‘this chaos is destroying the economy, and it is the poor who will suffer the most.’ 

Looting has hit supply chains and transport links in the Johannesburg region and the southeastern province of KwaZulu-Natal, sending a shockwave to goods and services around the country.  

In the port city of Durban, people started queueing outside food stores and at fuel stations as early as 4am – when the Covid night curfew ends.

The night before, the country’s largest refinery, Sapref, declared ‘force majeure’ – an emergency beyond its control – and shuttered its plant in Durban, shutting down a third of South Africa’s fuel supply.

The firm said the refinery was ‘temporarily shut down… due to the civil unrest and disruption of supply routes in and out of KwaZulu-Natal.’

Some fuel retailers have begun rationing while others are starting to run dry.

‘It’s inevitable that we will have fuel shortages in the next couple of days or weeks,’ Layton Beard, spokesman for South Africa’s Automobile Association, said.

Outside a branch of a popular supermarket in northern Durban’s Eastman region, around 400 people started lining up to buy food, hours before the shop was due to open.

‘With these lootings, it’s an inflection point… this has now seriously compromised our energy security and food security,’ warned Bonang Mohale, chancellor of the University of the Free State and a professor of business and economics studies.

‘It has created disruption to the coronavirus vaccine rollout and deliveries to hospitals,’ he added.

Christo van der Rheede, executive director of the largest farmers’ organisation, AgriSA, said producers were struggling to get their crops to market because the logistical network was in a ‘shambles’.

‘We need the restoration of law and order as soon as possible, because we are going to have a massive humanitarian crisis,’ van der Rheede said. 

The police last night confirmed that the number of people who have lost their lives in the looting so far has risen to 72. 

Most of the deaths ‘relate to stampedes that occurred during incidents of looting of shops’, the police statement said. 

Others were linked to shootings and explosions of bank ATMs.

The number of arrests has risen to 1,350, although many thousands have been involved in the ransacking sprees. 

Earlier TV footage showed dozens of women, some wearing their dressing gowns, men and even children strolling into a butcher in Soweto, coming out balancing heavy boxes of frozen meat on their heads or shoulders. 

Police showed up three hours later and fired rubber bullets. Soldiers eventually followed.

In Alexandra township north of Johannesburg, hundreds of people streamed in and out of a shopping mall, freely grabbing groceries. 

Looters who spoke to AFP said they had got caught up in the rush, or saw the chance to ease a life blighted by poverty. 

Half the population lives below the poverty line, according to the latest government figures from 2015, and growing joblessness since the coronavirus pandemic began has left many desperate. 

‘I’m really not concerned about Zuma. He is a corrupt old man that deserves to be in jail,’ said a 30-year-old man who works at a car wash.

He admitted to ‘taking things from the shop for my mum’ – stainless-steel pots, meat and groceries.  

In Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal’s capital, people hauled boxed refrigerators through bushes to a long line of cars that were parked along a highway.

In Durban, aerial footage showed hundreds of people looting a large shopping centre and carting off huge boxes of goods.

A woman was seen throwing her baby from the first floor of a building to save her from fire after shops below her apartment were set on fire. The child safely landed with a group of people on the street.  

In his nationwide address Monday night, Ramaphosa lashed ‘opportunistic acts of criminality, with groups of people instigating chaos merely as a cover for looting and theft’. 

‘The path of violence, of looting and anarchy, leads only to more violence and devastation,’ Ramaphosa said.

The chair of the African Union Commission condemned ‘the surge of violence that has resulted in the deaths of civilians and appalling scenes of the looting’, calling ‘for an urgent restoration of order’. 

The largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, announced Tuesday it would file criminal charges against Zuma’s children and the leader of the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Julius Malema. 

In a statement, the party accused them of using ‘social media to express comments which appear to encourage and incite the violence and looting.’

Wielding sticks, guns and metal rods, minibus owners on Wednesday patrolled a ransacked shopping mall in Johannesburg to stop the looting of stores destroyed by mobs, adding further violence to the unrest in South Africa.

Concerned about loss of income from shoppers and staff no longer travelling to the mall, dozens of local commuter minibus operators decided to take matters into their own hands and crack down on looters, undeterred by security forces.

They trudged through the debris littering Chris Hani mall, near the southeastern Johannesburg township of Vosloorus, dragging suspected looters outside for a violent beating.

Screams and gunshots filled the air as the group clamped down on their victims with sticks, clubs and whips.

One man who tried to escape was hit over the head with a glass bottle and dragged back, blood streaming down his neck.

Police and soldiers stood out of sight, near the main entrance to a large car park, where they would later take in captives brought over with their hands tied.

‘The malls are being looted, people are not working… so now we are stuck,’ said taxi official Abel, who did not wish to give his full name.

Township residents had meanwhile gathered in a nearby cemetery around the body of a teenage boy, allegedly shot by the same group earlier in the day. 

Taxi associations are notoriously violent in South Africa, where they oversee an informal public transport network served by trademark white minibuses.

Their involvement has raised concern within the government, which has warned against mob justice compounding some of the worst unrest South Africa has seen in years.

‘If we have everybody taking up arms we stand a risk of having unruly elements also hijacking the noble efforts of the community,’ acting presidency minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told a news briefing on Wednesday, urging citizens to work with law enforcement agencies.

Looting swiftly followed protests over the jailing of South Africa’s graft-accused former president Jacob Zuma, who is viewed by many as a defender of the poor.

Unrest has raged for almost a week, with impacts on supply chains and transport links that could lead to fuel and food shortages.

At least 72 people have died and more than 1,200 have been arrested, according to official figures.

While mobs caused the initial damage, many of the looters are now township dwellers struggling to feed their families – hardships made worse by the pandemic.

As police cars and forensic teams drove away, some onlookers tentatively inched back towards the mall.

Taxi owners picked up their weapons and went back inside for another round.

Once dubbed the ‘Teflon president’, Zuma was handed the jail term on June 29 by the Constitutional Court for bucking an order to appear before a commission probing the graft that proliferated under his administration.

He started serving the term on Thursday after handing himself in to authorities.

He is seeking to have the ruling set aside. 

Zuma, 79, is a former anti-apartheid fighter who spent 10 years in jail in the notorious Robben Island jail off Cape Town.

He rose in democratic South Africa to vice president and then president, before being ousted by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in 2018 as scandals proliferated.

But he remains popular among 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 malaise, with cripplingly high levels of unemployment. Economic activity had already been badly affected by restrictions to stop the spread of coronavirus.