Jul 14,2021:Protests that followed Zuma’s arrest last week have widened into looting and an outpouring of generalised anger over inequality that persists 27 years after the fall of apartheid.
Poverty has been exacerbated by severe social and economic restrictions aimed at blocking the spread of COVID-19.
Security officials said the government was working to halt the spread of the violence and looting, which has so far spread from Zuma’s home in KwaZulu-Natal province to Gauteng province surrounding the country’s biggest city Johannesburg.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced late on Monday he was dispatching troops to help overwhelmed police halt the unrest and “restore order”.
Death toll climbs to 72 as violence continues
The death toll from five days of violence in South Africa has risen to 72, police said Tuesday, despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s deployment of troops to quell the unrest.
“The total number of people who have lost their lives since the beginning of these protests …has risen to 72,” police said in a statement.
Most of the deaths, the forces, said “relate to stampedes that occurred during incidents of looting of shops”.
Others were linked to shooting and explosions of bank automatic cash machines.
