South Africa: Another Shopping Mall Burned by Black Mob as Infrastructure Continues to Collapse
June 29, 2018 in News by RBN Staff
Source: The New Observer
Yet another South African shopping mall—this time in the Limpopo Province—has been pointlessly burned to the ground by a rampaging black mob “protesting” against unemployment and the collapsing infrastructure in that country.
A report in the South African newspaper the Ridge Times said that the “residents” of the eMbalenhle have “vowed to keep on protesting until President Cyril Ramaphosa himself come down to community level and listen to their plight.”
The newspaper said that those “leading the protest” said they “were done dealing with their local . . . ANC councilors who have decided to refrain from any council work until service delivery issues were addressed.”
The problem, they said, was the “community’s frustrations with recurring power outages and poor service delivery.”
Both these complaints are, of course, the direct result of black rule, and the inability to maintain the previous white administration’s First World infrastructure—an irreparable problem which is steadily bringing all of that country to a grinding halt.
The Ridge Times went on to quote one Sifiso Zulu, a “community leader” who said he “and the other community leaders are now operating solely on the people’s mandate.”
“The people are especially angry about the damages that they suffer every time there is a power outage. Our electrical appliances cannot handle the strain of power surges.”
“When we complain to the municipality, we are told about the offices that burned down during a previous protest.”
The township has been “under siege by angry residents since late Sunday afternoon, 24 June, with no vehicles or people moving in or out,” the report continued.
“All the main roads towards eMbalenhle have been barricaded by stones and burning tyres, and some protestors even erected a shack in the middle of the entrance road near Welamlambo section.”
In addition, the report continued, “Many foreign shopkeepers packed up shop early on Sunday out of fear of being attacked.” By this is meant Indian and Chinese shopkeepers, who are a favorite target for black mobs in that country.
“Looters tore into an ATM and looted the shop and office of EM Motors and the Lewis Furniture storeroom where they stole every possible office appliance, including wall sockets, as well as furniture,” the report continued.
Hassan Mohamed of EM Motors told the newspaper that he was lucky to be alive as the mob was very aggressive and arrogant.
“The protesters were hurling stones at the shop and managed to get in and stole everything inside the shop.”
Rioting mobs threw stones at police, who “retaliated with rubber bullets and teargas,” while emergency medical rescue services had to be brought in under armed guard for their own safety.
“The confrontation between the police and protesters boiled over into a mini war when thousands of people marched to the police station by mid-day to demand the release of those who were arrested earlier,” the report added.
The crowd then split up into various groups with one group snaking through the streets to the post office where they torched the building.
They then stormed the Mall@eMba, looting and burning down the complex.
Another report in the Ridge Times said the “residents” “used various items such as doors and corrugated sheets to shield themselves from rubber bullets fired by police” before gaining access to the mall and “looting every shop and then set the mall alight.”
Comically, a police spokesman by the name of Brigadier Leonard Hlathi told the newspaper that “The situation is still volatile and I advise locals who are not involved in the protest, to stay indoors.”
At the same time, on the other side of the country, in Cape Town, five private vehicles were gutted and burning tires were strewn along Govan Mbeki Road at the Gugulethu municipal office on Wednesday morning, over an apparent threat that people would be evicted from the nearby Ramaphosa informal settlement.
ANC councillor for the area Nkululeko Mgolombane, said the residents told him that their shacks were under threat of being demolished by the City.
The City’s law enforcement spokesperson Wayne Dyason said that a “private” eviction sparked the violent protests and that four vehicles were set alight.