Pretoria – The South African Police Service (SAPS) on Wednesday said marches against foreigners across the country were largely peaceful but locals resorted to looting in some areas.
Lieutenant General Tebello Mosikili, the acting head of SAPS said at least 900 people were arrested on Tuesday.
“While the vast majority of demonstrations remained peaceful, there were individuals who sought to exploit yesterday’s events to commit criminal acts. Unfortunately for them, they quickly discovered that law enforcement was on their heels and ready to act decisively,” Mosikili said.
”Our members responded swiftly wherever incidents of looting, robbery, public violence and other criminal activities emerged.”
The majority of those arrested were illegal foreigners and looting as a result of law enforcement operations conducted alongside the protests, she added.
”Some were arrested for public violence, some for harbouring illegal immigrants, business robbery at Spaza shops etc,” Mosikili said.
Xenophobic South Africans organized a protest against foreigners in the country on June 30 to force non-South Africans to leave the country.
The March and March movement accuse foreigners in South Africa of taking their jobs, committing crimes and benefitting from the country’s economic opportunities ahead of them.
Foreign nationals from Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe who are based in South Africa have been targeted in violent attacks by South Africans.
Several embassies of the mentioned African nations have been organizing buses to ferry their nationals to their countries.
Hundreds of Zimbabwe nationals have been stranded at the Cape Town consulate sleeping in the open afraid of the violent attacks.
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