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Looted shops
Several shops, mostly believed to be owned by foreign nationals, have been looted in Estcourt in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands.
It is alleged the looting is as a result of a ruling by the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
It granted an interim order that the Inkosi Langalibalele Municipality must allow 38 Ethiopian shop owners in Estcourt, access to their shops to resume doing business.
The business owners said in court papers they have not been able to trade since the 25th of April, when municipal officials confiscated their shop keys.
The shops were expected to re-open today following the court’s decision.
“Police are assessing the situation and are investigating. Visibility will be maintained. The meeting is believed to be to be a response of foreign nationals who took the mayor to court recently. A meeting has been arranged for Friday afternoon between the office of the mayor, the police and the owners of the businesses and their shops that were looted. The aim of the meeting is to come up with a solution to prevent tensions between locals and foreign nationals as well as authorities,” says Police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda.
A shop owner of Somalian origin alleges that a group of people went around Estcourt on Thursday, threatening businesspeople that their shops will be looted. The man who wants to remain anonymous says he’s lived in South Africa for 20 years and is a South African citizen.
“Yesterday people came telling us that we have to close the shops otherwise they are going to loot. We don’t know what is next so you can feel the situation of someone of black colour being chase chased by another black person you see if I was white I would’ve I would hide. But being a black living at black people and being chased is something I cannot explain. I’m a permanent resident holder I have kids here a lot of problems, but we can’t complain all that because that’s our life works. One month we’ve been closed and there was no reason why we are closed. We opened with the permission of municipal workers. They say we can open they checked our documents and we were fine and we open and when you open this thing happened.”
Video: Violence breaks out in KZN, group of people looting foreign nationals’ shops in Estcourt
