Standing at the entrance to a looted mall and surrounded by soldiers, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa vowed yesterday to restore order to the country after a week of violence set off by the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma.
Visiting the port city of Durban in hard-hit KwaZulu-Natal province, Zuma’s home area, Mr Ramaphosa said the chaos and violence had been “planned and co-ordinated” and the instigators will be prosecuted.
“We have identified a good number of them and we will not allow anarchy and mayhem to just unfold in our country,” he said.
As army tanks rolled by the trashed Bridge City mall, Mr Ramaphosa said the deployment of 25,000 troops would end the violence and rampant theft in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces.
South Africa’s unrest erupted after Zuma began serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of court for refusing to comply with a court order to testify at a state-backed inquiry investigating allegations of corruption while he was president from 2009 to 2018.
Protests quickly escalated into theft in township areas. In Durban, rioters attacked retail areas and industrial centres. They emptied warehouses and set them alight. The burned-out shells still smouldered yesterday.
More than 2,200 people have been arrested for theft and vandalism and 117 people have died, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, acting minister in the presidency, said on Thursday.
Many were trampled to death when shops were looted, according to police.
The army roll-out in KwaZulu-Natal is expected to restore order in the coastal province within a few days. An uneasy calm has been secured in Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city and industrial hub.
In a sign of a return to stability, a strategic highway linking Durban and Johannesburg reopened yesterday after being closed for a week, officials announced.
South Africa’s unrest first flared at the Mooi River toll gate for the N3 highway where more than 20 trucks were burned.
The military will patrol the highway but drivers are warned to use the road with care.
“It is vitally important to proceed with extreme caution and to stay alert at all times,” said the highway authority in a tweet.
The military is also working to keep open the N2 highway, which links Cape Town and Durban.
The highways are vital transport routes carrying fuel, food and other goods. The rail line to the strategic Indian Ocean ports of Durban and Richard’s Bay was also closed by the unrest, the state-owned transportation company, Transnet said earlier this week.
With order restored in Gauteng, authorities have begun holding residents accountable.
Police in Johannesburg have started recovering stolen property and arresting suspects.
There has been an increase in people trying to spend cash that is stained with green dye, evidence that the money was stolen from the hundreds of ATM machines broken into during the riots, according to the South African Banking Risk Information Centre.
They warned the notes won’t be honoured.
To restore respect for law, the South African Council of Churches has proposed the government declare a limited amnesty of two weeks when people can return stolen property to the police and not be charged.