South Africa's Leader Vows to Restore Order, Catch Plotters
Voice of America
JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's leader went to Johannesburg's Soweto township Sunday to view badly damaged shopping centers where people were trampled to death in rioting sparked by the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma.
President Cyril Ramaphosa toured the Ndofaya Mall in the Meadowlands part of Soweto, where at least 10 people died in the ransacking. South Africa's unrest erupted earlier this month when Zuma began serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of court. He had defied a court order to testify at a state-backed inquiry investigating allegations of corruption while he was president from 2009 to 2018. The protests quickly escalated to a weeklong spree of violence, South Africa's worst rioting since the country achieved majority rule democracy in 1994. The unrest hit the KwaZulu-Natal province, which is Zuma's home area, and Gauteng, South Africa's most populous province, which includes Johannesburg, the country's largest city. Trucks were burned, strategic highways blocked and thousands of rioters ransacked malls and shopping centers in the two provinces.Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, right, and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, left, leave a podium after marking Independence Day in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024. Demonstrators with Georgian national and EU flags rally during an opposition protest against a foreign influence bill as they mark their country's Independence Day, in the center of in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024.