Unrest broke out in South Africa for a sixth day on Wednesday, raising fears of food and fuel shortages as disruptions to farming, manufacturing and oil refining.
Seventy-two people have been killed and more than 1,200 people arrested, according to official figures, with protests turning increasingly violent since former President Jacob Zuma began his 15-month prison sentence.
The looting has affected supply chains and transport links in the Johannesburg region and the southeastern province of KwaZulu-Natal, causing a jolt to goods and services across the country.
An AFP photographer observed that in the port city of Durban, people began queuing outside food stores and fuel stations as early as 4 a.m. (0200 GMT), when the Covid night curfew ended.
A night earlier, the country’s largest refinery, Sapref, declared an “unforeseen event” – an emergency beyond its control – and closed its plant in Durban, shutting down a third of South Africa’s fuel supply .
The firm said the refinery was “temporarily closed … due to civil unrest and disruption of supply routes in and out of KwaZulu-Natal.”
Some fuel retailers have started giving out rations while others have started drying up.
“It is inevitable that in the next few days or weeks we will have a fuel shortage,” South African Automobile Association spokesman Layton Beard told AFP.
‘Great humanitarian crisis’
Hours before the store opened, some 400 people began to line up to buy food, outside a branch of a popular supermarket in north Durban’s Eastman area.
“With these lootings, this is an inflection point … It has now seriously compromised our energy security and food security,” warned University of Free State chancellor and professor of business and economics studies, Bonang Mohle.
“This has led to disruptions in coronavirus vaccine rollouts and deliveries to hospitals,” he told AFP.
Christo van der Riede, executive director of Agrisa, the largest farmers’ organisation, said growers were struggling to bring their crops to market because the logistics network was “poor”.
“We need to restore law and order as soon as possible, because we are going to have a major humanitarian crisis,” van der Reede told AFP.
army deployment
Shops and warehouses have been targeted by looters despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s deployment of 2,500 troops to support a massive police force.
But these shoes dwarf the number on the ground by the more than 70,000 soldiers deployed to enforce last year’s coronavirus lockdown.
Only a few soldiers have been seen at some shopping centers.
TV footage has come as a shock to many South Africans, showing mobs of robbers recklessly carrying refrigerators, large TVs, microwave ovens, fashion accessories and boxes of food and wine.
The looting sparked protests against the jailing of former President Zuma, who is seen as a savior of the poor by hardliners and many grassroots members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
Zuma, once known as the “Teflon President”, was sentenced to prison on June 29 by the Constitutional Court for defying an order to appear before a commission investigating corruption spread under his administration. was.
He began completing his term on Thursday after handing himself over to the authorities. He is demanding quashing of this decision.
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