Johannesburg -
Smashed windows, broken burglar bars, looted shops, anger, terror and a grieving family of a 62-year taxi owner who was hit by a stray bullet.
These were the disturbing scenes of devastation that littered the streets of Kagiso on Friday.
The unrest in the townships that began on Monday spread to the West Rand and police officers battled to keep up with the crowds of youngsters, allegedly high on drugs, as the wave of pillaging of foreign-owned shops progressed unabated.
As the looting continued in Kagiso, a high-powered delegation including the Gauteng premier, David Makhura, and Joburg mayor Parks Tau toured Soweto.
The looting followed the fatal shooting of Siphiwe Mahori, 14, in an incident in which he and others allegedly tried to rob a Somali-owned store in Snake Park.
The shop owner, Senosi Yusuf, is expected to appear in the Protea Magistrate’s Court on a charge of murder on Monday.
In Kagiso, when a group of brazen youths could not break down the burglar-proof doors to gain entry into South Supermarket in Extension 12, they attempted to break through a brick wall by smashing it with hammers and rocks.
Some residents claimed the mayhem was caused by frustration at the lack of jobs created by the foreign shop owners, mostly Somali, Pakistani and Bangladeshi, that left the youths with nothing to do.
Many of the rioters were teenagers and it seemed that the whole scene was a game for them as they looted shops, smashed windows and ran to the veld laughing when police arrived.
The vandalism and looting in Kagiso followed incidents in several Soweto locations throughout the week in which two people were confirmed to have been killed by bullets from foreign shop owners.
In Swaneville, the family of a third victim, a taxi owner Hendrik Zamani Manye, 62, wept inconsolably after he was killed by a stray bullet that was apparently fired by Somali shop owners from across the street where he lived with his live-in partner Adelaide Tsotetsi.
Tsotetsi said Manye had just arrived at home at about 8pm when he saw the rioters gather at the shop across the road from his home and decided to check out what was happening.
Then several shots rang out as the youngsters began hurling rocks at the shop window and the Somali owners were stuck inside, she said.
“I heard someone screaming and when I went outside I found him lying down on the floor with his hand below the left arm where he was hot,” she said.
“He didn’t deserve to die this way. He loved the Somalis and they called him daddy because he regularly supported their business.”
Manye was confirmed dead on arrival at Leratong Hospital with his family.
Tsotetsi said the painful part of Manye’s death was that he was still alive when police arrived but, instead of helping him first, they rushed to rescue the Somali shop owners and escort them to safety.
“There was not a drop of blood from him. He bled inside and I can imagine the pain he was going through,” she said.
“The government must do something about the illegal guns or else the Somalis will finish us all.”
Police confirmed the shop owner was arrested over Manye’s death.
In Kagiso Extension 12, the rioters continued to outmanoeuvre the police, leaving a trail of destruction in their tracks.
Every time a police van pulled up at a new shop being attacked, the youngsters simply dashed through narrow paths and hid away from cops firing rubber bullets.
At one point, police officers chased three teenagers in Extension 8 ,who ran towards a hostel carrying 2-litre bottles of cooldrink in their hands from a looted shop.
The police officers fired live ammunition into the air in a desperate bid to stop them but it was all in vain.
In Senqobile, police arrested an elderly woman who had stacked up groceries of maize meal, beverages and sacks of diapers.
The woman lived just across the road from a shop that had been looted.
As police retrieved the stolen goods from her home, residents begged for mercy insisting: “She was too old to have possibly carried all that by herself.”
Terrified residents who mulled around the township urged a few remaining shop owners to pack up their stock and leave before falling victim to the looters.
Others vowed to defend the foreign shop owners with their own lives, accusing the teenagers driving the chaotic scenes in their area of being high on “nyaope”, a white powdery street drug.
Resident Ellen Mofokeng said: “Foreign shop owners help us a lot. We love them, but we can’t do anything to stop this madness”.
A community leader in Swaneville, Golo Keilelwang, blamed foreign shop owners for failing to contribute to the development of locals by creating job opportunities to help the local youths.
“We are not saying we don’t need foreign-owned shops in our community but how will our lives be improved if our government doesn’t help us by insisting that these shop owners contribute to the human development of the communities where they trade?” he asked.
“I am not condoning crime or xenophobia, but I am saying let’s look at the root of the problem.”
- Saturday Star