As South Africa woke up this morning to reflect on yesterday’s horrific acts of anarchy sparked by attacks against foreign nationals, business concerns and citizens were dealing with the cumulative effect of a country gripped by xenophobia.
Some 50 shops were said to have been looted, mainly in suburbs like Turffontein, Jeppestown and Hillbrow, and as violence spread from area to area, a further 47 shops in Alexandra fell prey to rampaging residents who set upon the Pan African Shopping Centre in Wynberg.
In the meantime an unsettling calm has descended on neighbourhoods like Hillbrow, turned into no-go zones by yesterday’s rampant street chaos.
Playing it safe in Johannesburg’s city centre, several mining corporations - including Anglo American and also Absa Group’s nerve centre - closed their offices or resorted to running on skeleton staff.
Reports also filtered through of schools in affected areas closing for the day out of fear for the safety of their pupils.
One of the organisations responsible for spreading a message of reckless resistance to foreign nationals working in South Africa, the All Truck Drivers Association, has since fallen silent in an apparent about-turn from the vitriol it’s been spreading via social media.
Reports from Zimbabwe stated that trucks were queuing north of the Beitbridge border because of reluctance among drivers to cross, while simultaneous reports reached FTW Online of a petrol bomb attack on two trucks on the N3 near Mooi River in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, a notorious spot for truck torching.
And as President Cyril Ramaphosa prepares himself to welcome peer leaders from elsewhere on the continent for the Africa edition of the World Economic Forum (WEF) starting in Cape Town tomorrow, Nigeria’s government has reacted sternly against ongoing incidents of xenophobia in South Africa.
“The continuing attacks on Nigerian nationals and businesses in South African are unacceptable. Enough is enough. Nigeria will take definitive measures to ensure safety and protection of her citizens.”
It is hoped that Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s presence at the WEF summit in Cape Town will at least warrant a reaction from Ramaphosa who is yet to say anything about the last three days of hate-fuelled violence.
As we went to press with this story, an employee of Now Media, holding company of FTW, expressed her fear of having to take a taxi into Johannesburg to get to Eldorado Park. It came after she received a video of foreign nationals marching through the streets chanting, “enough is enough!”
