The country has woken up to the very stressful scenes and videos from the free Zuma protests. These protests were seen intensifying overnight due to the fact of what president Cyril Ramaphosa said during his address. Many people were angry when South Africa‘s president said the cause of the strike was ethnic mobilisation instead of addressing the fact that people want the former president Jacob Zuma released from prison. This led to more violence all across the country just hours after the national address.
Protesters were seen involved in more violence than ever as they went out to loot malls around the KwaZulu-Natal province and some in the Gauteng province. These people looted everything from electronic stores to grocery shops but according to reports this morning, the main targets seem to be alcohol retail shops. After all is said and done the looters end up setting fire to the place they just finished shooting. This has led to one particular mall in the province of KwaZulu-Natal being burnt to the ground.
The Brookside mall in Pietermaritzburg it’s still burning even now due to the fact that the Zuma protesters looted yesterday and then said some fires after. At this point the hasn’t been firefighters inside due to the fact that the other sports that they had to extinguish overnight. This is a very horrific scene as it will cost South Africa millions to fix the small and thousands of people are going to lose their jobs due to this protests. The president has not said anything to stop the violence except condemning them.
The majority of South Africans have called for the Ramaphosa to deploy the South African national defence force do all these areas that are affected by looters. This is because the police have been seen throughout the night just watching a group of looters take as much as they want. Some of the police members were seen looting alcohol from these retail outlets instead of protecting them from the people. The South African national defence force could possibly stop all this chaos going on around the country in just a few hours.
Watch the video of the mall burning below:
What is your take on the matter? Do you think the president should indeed apply the South African national defence force or should we leave it to the police to stop all of this chaos happening around the country?