Desk Report
Published: 22 Jul 2021, 11:48 am
The recent unrest in South Africa has claimed 276 lives. (Photo: Collected)
The recent unrest in South Africa has claimed 276 lives, the government said on Wednesday, raising the death toll from 215 announced earlier his week.
"Since the unrest, a total of 234 deaths as related to the unrest were reported in KwaZulu-Natal to date," a minister in the president's office, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, said in a statement, adding that another 42 deaths were recorded in Gauteng province which includes Johannesburg.
The minister said "stability" had returned to the two provinces rocked by unprecedented violence in post-apartheid South Africa and that police were carrying out "mopping-up operations to ensure opportunistic and copycat activities do not find traction".
Rioting broke out a day after ex-president Jacob Zuma started serving a 15-month jail term for ignoring a corruption inquiry.
It spread through Zuma's KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, South Africa's most populous provinces accounting for half of the country's GDP.
The violence has abated, and six people, including a DJ, have so far been arrested on charges of incitement to commit public violence.
Several thousand more are being held for looting.