Several communities across the country have decided to put their lives at risk to protect property and their livelihoods against those looking to jump onto the bandwagon of looting and rioting.
From taxi drivers opting not to sleep at home to unemployed youth armed with whistles and sjamboks, a #NotInMyCommunity movement is gaining momentum as widespread looting hit KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Sowetan on Tuesday visited Eldorado Park as residents and business owners joined hands to prevent looting from spreading to their community.
Riaz Alli, who runs a business in the area, has been at the forefront of a team that tasked itself with protecting infrastructure by forming a human shield about big businesses.
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“We organised a group of community members to protect the Eldos central business district. There were about 150 members from the community, including people who are employed at some of these businesses, who came out at night to protect shops,” said Alli.
There were attempts to loot their shops by youngsters in the area but those attempts were thwarted.
Vinesh Moodley, one of the patrollers in the area, who was standing guard at the entrance of Shoprite in Extension 5, said he was struck on the head with a rock when looters tried to make their way into the shop premises.
“It was bad. There was about 100 of them, but we managed to protect these premises,” Moodley said.
In several parts of Mpumalanga, taxi drivers, owners and ordinary community members thwarted several riots apparently aimed at looting shopping centres.
Mpumalanga MEC for agriculture, rural development and land affairs, Mandla Msibi, led community members in standing guard and spending the night at the Emoyeni Mall at his Pienaar township outside White River, to protect it against any attempts of looting.
“We slept here to defend the mall... if we allow this mall to burn that means we must go back to town at Riverside and look for jobs and shop there,” Msibi said.
In Hazyview, taxi drivers and owners lined up their taxis and cars about the mall on Monday evening and Tuesday morning to thwart any attempt to vandalise and loot it.
“We have no choice but to protect this mall which is the source of our income. If this mall is vandalised, looted and closed we will not have people to ferry because people will be unemployed, unable to shop or work,” said taxi owner Mbongeni Tsabetse.
Some residents of Matsulu outside Mbombela managed to stop what they called the complete burning of their mall which was being looted by rioters this week.
Community member Nhlanhla Mkhabela said they spent the whole night on guard after some of the stores had been attacked.
“They [rioters] outsmarted us at first, but we managed to stop them before they could burn the complex, though they looted other shops,” said Mkhabela.
In Schoemansdal, also in Mpumalanga, taxi owners and drivers joined some community members to prevent plans to loot the local plaza.
In Limpopo, residents, businesspeople and taxi associations forged an alliance to fight against any possible looting and vandalising of shopping centres.
Residents of Seshego, Polokwane, in collaboration with local taxi associations and the Polokwane CBD Business Forum, launched patrol teams Tuesday to prevent any prospect of the unrest taking place in the surrounding areas.
Chairperson of the Seshego Community Policing Forum Vincent Kunutu said they started patrolling the area on Monday after receiving reports of a planned looting.
Kunutu said they don't want any destruction of property in the area. “We are not going to allow criminals to destroy malls and anything that people worked hard for,” he said.
Chairperson of the Polokwane and Seshego Taxi Association Solly Ledwaba said: “We are not going to allow anyone to hold us at ransom by making our route and commuters ungovernable because our business will collapse. We have been patrolling all along, but now we have intensified our efforts.”
Unemployed youth in Soshanguve, armed with whistles and sjamboks, have also started a night and early morning patrol club which aims to alert police and thwart attempts to loot local shopping malls.
Siphoesihle Dubazana, 27, said after recruiting each other through social media platforms they began patrolling about Bathong Plaza and Soshanguve Plaza in groups to prevent any looting attempts, especially at night.
Starting with eight members, they began patrols on Monday evening and hope to be joined by other like-minded youth in the area. They call their operation a #NoToLooting Movement.
“We patrol in the evening and in the early hours of the morning and if we find any person trying to loot, we will call the police to arrest them,” Dubazana said.
Ulundi’s municipal leadership in KZN, including its mayor Wilson Ntshangase, joined the police in helping fend off looters from the CBD of the IFP-controlled local municipality on Monday and Tuesday.
Meanwhile, taxi operators affiliated to the Randburg United Local and Long Distance Taxi Association took matters into their own hands to curb the widespread looting.
Close to 60 drivers, queue marshals, executive members and residents hunted down those suspected of looting in Diepsloot and took back stolen items and returned them.
Freddy Tshigabe, PRO for the association, said: “They looted Bambanani Mall, and we would not have any of that. When they do something like this, it affects not only our communities, but it affects us as well because people lose their jobs and in turn, we lose customers. We would not wait for government to act …”
— Additional reporting by Siviwe Feketha
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