Looting broke out in several cities in South Africa this weekend after the country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, began serving a 15-month sentence last Thursday for contempt in relation to an investigation of corruption during his tenure.
The metropolitan areas of Johannesburg, in Gauteng Province, and Durban and Pietermaritzburg, in KwaZulu-Natal province, saw looting and violence as police struggled to maintain order, and the army was called out in an attempt to control the ongoing chaos.
Videos of the violence and unrest circulated on social media.
The country is also suffering from the effects of repeated coronavirus lockdowns, as the government has struggled to provide vaccines. President Cyril Ramaphosa was due to address the nation on Monday evening to deal with the chaos.
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.