South Africa is in strife. The well-known President Cyril Ramaphosa called around 25 thousand troops to restrict the people that were banging with each other, fighting like enemies as they started looting and rioting last Friday. After Apartheid that was ended in 1994, this riot was considered as the worst spate of violence. From last week 72 people have been killed and more than 1700 people have been arrested in the riots by the troops.
There is a lot of destruction or violence has been caused by the people in the country, the people which have died had become the victim of shootings, arsons & explosives, as well as some of them, indulged in fights and they have trampled to death. There are instances that have been made to create more violence in the country there can be the rise of COVID cases as the population of South Africa is around 60 million and the country is also in the middle of facing the worst situation of COVID yet. This week on Monday Ramaphosa addressed the nation on TV and given the statement that “Our vaccination program has been severely disrupted just as it is gaining momentum” he also announced that there will be marshaling of military forces. In addition to that, he also that if the violence gets to its peak then there will be disruption of food and health services for upcoming weeks. The ex-president Jacob Zuma who was in the power from 2009 to 2018 was arrested due to some reasons and coincidentally the two days later the riots have been started.
When did the riots take place?
Protests broke out last Friday, just two days after Zuma’s arrest. KwaZulu- Natal is the home province of Zuma with the highest second biggest province in South Africa by the population where around 11 million live in this province. At the time when Zuma has to come out of his residence to handing himself, but before that, his supporters came into support and amassed in front of Zuma’s residence so that they can prevent the officials or the authorities from arresting him.
Supporters of Zuma have blocked the roads and started putting fire to the property such as in the shopping centers and factories and some people started looting in distributer centers of LG and Samsung. One Video Clip got viral which is showing that a woman was been forced to throw her baby from a burning building to a crowd below. Protests got spread to other provinces such as Gutenberg which is known as the smallest province in terms of landmass and biggest in terms of population and its capital is Johannesburg, the country’s financial center. In that people started attacking and looting supermarkets and stores, the food trucks were set up on fire and the national highway closed off. After that local police came into effect and simultaneously the president Cyril Ramaphosa stated the order to military armed forces to start taking action in both the provinces, in which 1200 people were arrested.
What is the reason for Rioting?
This will be a dicey question for upcoming months, maybe there is something serious issues that can be overwhelmed. Explanations may include political violence, seek for looting, or dissatisfaction with poverty and discrimination.
Many of the blaming that the main reason for the violence is the Zuma’s family and the other reason is Zuma’s daughter compared the leadership of President Ramaphosa with Apartheid-era leadership and she also encouraged her 1 lakh, Twitter followers, to create violence all over the province by applauding the pictures and video of arson and obstruction. The Jacob G Zuma Foundation seemingly condoned the violent protests tweeting: The Foundation has noted the reactive righteous anger of the people of South Africa which others have seemed as violence. When they approached to the people and the people said that they are reacting to the violent provocation melted and betrayed by the confinement of President Zuma by trial.
It later tweeted that: “Peace and stability in South Africa are directly linked to the release of President Zuma with immediate effect.”
After this, Zuma’s supporters gathered in front of Zuma’s residence so that authorities can’t able to arrest him and South Africa must know their position because the country is in the mid of COVID cases as on July 13, 51 thousand COVID tests have been done out of which 12,500 have been positive which means out of every four tests one is positive and also South Africa has the highest unemployment rate in the world which is 32% and also in terms of crime rates South Africa has been in top named lists. The World Bank called South Africa the world’s most unequal country in the world in 2018 till now. President Ramaphosa said that these may be the reasons for looting driven by hardships and poverty. He also said that “the poor and the marginalized bear the ultimate brunt of the destruction that is underway.
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