DL5B_20210724_0962

#ZumaUnrest - The Sufferers

 

In the aftermath of #ZumaUnrest, many rural towns in KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, were devastated. Shops, grocery stores, hardware stores, mobile phone shops and other retailers were looted and often burned down and ATM machines were plundered for their cash. Testimonies of locals were that armed police stood by as crowds rampaged down the main street of rural towns. While many shop owners were insured, some, particularly foreigners, were not. For them, businesses that took decades of hard labour to build up were lost in just hours. More than 12 days after the looting started in the towns of New Hanover, Dalton and Wartburg north of Pietermaritzburg, the only food available to the surrounding population were mobile street vendours bringing in food from other towns. That situation is unlikely to change for many weeks.

 

The Wartburg BuildIt was looted and then burned down during #ZumaUnrest. Owners Craig and Linda Behrens had spent 30 years building up the business from scratch originally started in Craig's gararge. As looting was happening in the rest of the town, Craig made an attempt to use his fork lift to block the entrances to the store with piles of bricks but protesters threw rocks at him as he attempted to do that. He was in the yard when the crowd had completed plundering the other shops and turned as one on the BuildIt. He had to run and climb through the fence at the back of the property to escape. He said what was most heart breaking was seeing his own customers that he recognises, driving away with bukkie loads of his stock.

 

 

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