South Africans organise to confront looters, defend property

Many citizens have banded together to scare off looters as South Africa reels under its worst unrest in decades.

Triggered by the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma last week, after he failed to appear at a corruption inquiry, protests in South Africa have widened into an orgy of looting and an outpouring of anger over the hardship and inequality that persist in South Africa for 27 years after the end of apartheid. More than 70 people have been killed in the unrest, the worst in South Africa for years, and hundreds of businesses wrecked. Food and fuel supplies are running short. Shopping malls and warehouses have been ransacked or set ablaze in several cities, mostly in Zuma’s home in the KwaZulu-Natal province, especially the Indian Ocean port city of Durban, and the financial and economic centre Johannesburg and surrounding Gauteng province.