South African President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the violence-hit eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal on Friday to check the extent of damage done by the miscreants, reported Africa News. The KwaZulu-Natal province is the epicentre of deadly violence that has shaken the country over the past week.
Ramaphosa said the riots that followed the imprisonment of former president Jacob Zuma were instigated.
“It’s quite clear that all these incidents of unrest and looting were instigated. There are instigators. There were people who planned it, they coordinated it. We are after those people; we have identified a good number of them. We will not allow anarchy to just unfolding our country”, the South African president said.
Ramaphosa said the instigators had been identified but didn’t elaborate. He said the police are already after the culprits.
The president added that the locals including volunteers have begun working with the government people to clean up the towns, which is a sign that the intention of the instigators has failed. He ensured that there was no shortage of food or supplies and urged people against panic buying. He appealed to the South Africans to come together to bring back everything on track.
Over the past week, South Africa has experienced another wave of unrest following Zuma’s jailing ordered by the country’s Constitutional Court for refusing to testify to a corruption investigation. People looted shopping malls and warehouses in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, resulting in fears of shortages and inflicting a big blow to the economy. The violence has led to the deaths of about 117 people.
On Thursday, the government said the police has identified and arrested one of the suspected instigators, and 11 were under surveillance. A total of 2,203 people have been arrested since the unrest began.
The South African government has already deployed more than 20,000 defense personnel in the two most violent affected provinces to assist police in quelling the unrest.
