GOVERNMENT says a total of 757 people have been arrested in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal amid ongoing violence and rampant looting in the two provinces.
The police said more arrests are ongoing and the instigators behind the ongoing violence and looting would not be spared.
At least 45 have been killed in both Gauteng (19) and KwaZulu-Natal (26), according to latest information from the police.
The National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (NATJOINTS) on Tuesday welcomed the deployment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in support of the operations of the South African Police Service (SAPS) in all the affected areas in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday that “these will be augmented by the SAPS’s measures being put in place to call up operational members from leave and rest-days to increase the presence of law enforcement personnel on the ground.”
The widespread looting followed the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma, and has disrupted key major trade routes and saw businesses from banks and supermarkets to small-time traders shutting their doors
The Justice, Crime Prevention and Security Cluster Ministers said while the intervention of some communities to actively stop the mass lootings has been commended, and they encouraged communities not to take the law into their own hands and continue to work with the police.
State Security Minister Ayanda Dlodlo said state security gave police intelligence information and they acted on it immediately.
“I want South Africans to be assured that we did avert a lot. We were not missing in action and neither were the police,” said Dlodlo.
Dlodlo said government was concerned that the violence could now lead to attacks of foreign national and right-wing extremism, sparking racial tensions.
Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said at this stage there was no reason to declare a State of Emergency.
Police minister Bheki Cele, on the other hand, said as Ministers in the Justice and Crime Prevention Cluster, they had the responsibility to assert the authority of the state and to safeguard the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the republic.
“We are building up, not shutting down. We will not be deterred, as South Africans, from the task ahead. If these acts of violence continue unabated, we run the risk of running out of basic food stuffs and that would be disastrous for the country,” said Cele.
“The involvement of other stakeholders is also critical in the fight against lawlessness and in this regard, we have already engaged the leadership of private security companies, in an effort to increase better working relations with the police.”
Ramaphosa appealed for calm on Monday night, and warned that the riots posed a severe threat to food security and were disrupting efforts to inoculate people against the virus that causes Covid-19.
“What we are witnessing now are opportunistic acts of criminality, with groups of people instigating chaos merely as a cover for looting and theft,” he said.
“The poor and the marginalized will bear the ultimate brunt of the destruction that’s currently underway.”
- Inside Politics
