South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was due to join post-riot clean-up efforts on Sunday as his government warned against vigilantism and sought to avert racial conflict following the unrest. The country was gripped by more than a week of chaos that claimed more than 200 lives as looters ransacked shopping centres and unidentified groups torched […]
Africa
S.Africa hikes troop deployment against looters as death toll rises to 117
The death toll in South Africa’s unrest rose to 117 on Thursday, as the country called up its army reserves in a bid to quell looting that has stoked fears of shortages and dealt a crippling economic blow. The acting minister in the presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, told reporters that Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic capital, was […]
South African government asks for 25,000 troops to curb unrest
The South African government on Wednesday sought to deploy around 25,000 troops to curb unrest, now in its sixth straight day, amid fears of food and fuel shortages as disruption to farming, manufacturing and oil refining began to bite. Seventy-two people have died and more than 1,200 people arrested, according to official figures, since former […]
British and Irish Lions reassured on safety in South Africa
The British and Irish Lions have been reassured of their safety amid a mounting death toll related to looting and arson in South Africa, a security official with the tourists told AFP on Wednesday. By Tuesday night, the unrest had claimed 72 lives with police saying many of the fatalities resulted from “stampedes that occurred […]
Covid surging in Africa with more than 6 mn cases: AFP tally
Coronavirus is surging in Africa with a record average number of new cases according to an AFP tally based on official sources on Tuesday at 1815 GMT. It said 6,009,854 cases have been officially counted in Africa’s 54 nations and territories since the virus was first discovered in December 2019 in China. The number of […]
South Africa unrest death toll climbs to 72: police
The death toll from five days of violence in South Africa has risen to 72, police said Tuesday, despite President Cyril Ramaphosa’s deployment of troops to quell the unrest. “The total number of people who have lost their lives since the beginning of these protests …has risen to 72,” police said in a statement. Police […]
South Africa’s ex-president Zuma hands himself to prison
South Africa’s ex-president Jacob Zuma turned himself in to prison late Wednesday to begin serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of court, his foundation said. In a historic ruling, the Constitutional Court last week handed Zuma a 15-month term for snubbing anti-graft investigators. Police had earlier on Wednesday warned they were prepared to arrest the […]
Drone delivery firm Zipline raises $250 mn for expansion
US-based drone operator Zipline, which has seen pandemic-fueled growth of delivery of vaccines and medical supplies in Africa and the United States, said Wednesday it raised $250 million as it moves to expand globally. The latest round valued the California-based startup at $2.75 billion and will be used to fund “expansion into new industries and […]
‘Brutal’ third wave hits Africa as vaccination slows
Africa is facing a vicious coronavirus resurgence, with unprecedented hospital admissions and fatalities pushing health facilities to the brink as the continent falls far behind in the global vaccination drive. With just under 5.3 million reported cases and around 139,000 deaths among its nearly 1.3 billion people, Africa is still the world’s least-affected continent after […]
‘Train of Hope’ brings healthcare to South Africa’s poor
A 19-coach train pulled into the Dube station of South Africa’s emblematic Soweto township early in the morning to bring desperately-needed and virtually free medical services to poor residents. Equipped with instruments and gear for optometry, dentistry, general medicine, psychology and a pharmacy — the Phelophepa clinic-on-rails criss-crosses the country for nine months a year. […]