Durban, South Africa’s Third-largest City, Runs Out of Bread, Milk Due to Looting

The city of Durban, South Africa, the country’s third-largest metropolitan area, has run out of bread and milk as a result of looting that has continued since Sunday, despite the presence of the military and pleas by the country’s leaders to stop.

Local news website Independent Online reported Tuesday:

Communities formed snaking, often silent queues, at shops that had not bore the brunt of looters in Durban in an effort to buy what ever essentials they could get their hands on.

What was, however, clear was that bread and milk supplies had run out.

With shopping malls across the city looted bare, food security was fast becoming a concern.

In addition to basic food supplies, mothers were desperately queuing for baby formula and nappies [diapers], with supplies fast running out.

As Breitbart News has reported, rioting and looting began this past weekend in the populous Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces after former President Jacob Zuma reported to prison to serve a 15-month sentence for contempt.

Zuma was the country’s first Zulu president, the first member of the country’s largest ethnic group to serve in that role, after the presidency had been dominated by members of the Xhosa group since the first democratic elections in 1994.

South Africans are suffering from years of economic mismanagement under the ruling African National Congress party, which led the country to liberation from apartheid, but has applied statist policies, while also corrupting state institutions.

Those troubles have been exacerbated by poor management of the coronavirus pandemic. Few South Africans have been vaccinated, and the country has suffered repeated lockdowns, causing further economic hardship for the poor population.

There have been 72 confirmed deaths thus far, as rioting has continued in Johannesburg, Durban, and other cities. The country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, pleaded with his compatriots to obey the rule of law in an address Monday night.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book is How Not to Be a Sh!thole Country: Lessons from South Africa. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.