Update. I’m on watch, security services were holding back a mob coming from the nearest township and managed to disperse them. Could hear the gunshots, flash bangs and chanting from here. Maybe, 4km away, sound carrying in the night air. Felt a whole lot closer. I say ‘watch’, I’m all but defenceless apart from a few knives. It’s more that if they broke through, I can get the family out of our apartment complex and further away to the emergency hold. Fuck me, what a clusterfuck.
Not over, reports say dispersed but still possibility of another attempt. Will copy the message from our community watch Whatsapp group here:
“Community Update :
We under seige in Margate tonite we under attack suddenly from a Group of 300 people from masenge who wanted to invade town and loot Using live rounds and rocks at our members and security companies.We managed to push them back to masenge and arrested over 30.still a great threat. Grassmere supermarket marine attacked 4 arrested by maser. Security .8 arrested marching down from gamalake to st Mikes.Maser AND Wolf THANK YOU FOR BACKING UP MARGATE SAPS .NOT OVER YET STILL FORCING THEM BACK.WIthout your help we would have been overrun and looted we fighting till the death and won’t give up our Margate. Community needs help us to get us more rubber least 1000 rounds Margate saps running out of Rubber saps fast we got no stock available. Prov run out due to the violence .any help we appreciate it to get rounds”
Looked up where you live and Maser security but that is some serious stuff. When you live in the Netherlands you have no idea that people who are living in such a beautiful country need that kind of armed security.
On a lighter note: would love to play Southbroom golf club. Perhaps one day …
Was going to post that. Insane isn’t it, utterly insane. Has anyone ever seen anything like it? It’s like scenes from a disaster movie except those aren’t special effects and extras
Sadly, we do require it and the basis is that they look tough, are tough, and people don’t mess with them. There is another called Wolf and to be completely honest in a European country they’d be classed as paramilitary groups. That said, they perform an amazing service to this community and are designated as peace officers to take the strain of an understaffed police force. Without them, we’d have been overwhelmed last night.
On a lighter note, Southbroom course is amazing. It winds through the village and is just so picturesque. I’ve not played it myself so I will wait for you and we will play it together and hopefully I can show you my country is more than just this insanity
Thank you Maria, some community men have joined with the security companies and police to man barricades. I am home with my family; wife and sons aged 7 and 1 month. We have evacuation bag with essentials packed (for the last resort) . I cannot leave them and risk a breakthrough in another sector leaving me a scramble to get back to them which may or not be possible. Thank you all for your concern, I really appreciate it.
Omg! It must be so frightening for the kids.
It is good you have a contingency plan.
I don’t know much about South African politics.
I thought the country was run well compared to other countries on the continent. I hope law and order is restored quickly. So you all can back to normal
I cannot imagine what you are going through. I could never imagine when my elders told me about running and escaping from unrests or war zones, losing all their belongs when the boat that they escaped on sank.
I’ve only seen such scenes from failed states, during military occupation, when an occupier leaves, aftermath of an invasion or revolutions. This is very bad. I wish the best for you and that you and yours (and everyone else, but you know what I mean) are safe. I read your posts. It sounds dramatic and incredibly bad.
Sad to see that in KZN. Was in Durban for business almost a decade ago. Beautiful place. Hope everything settle down soon and common sense prevails. Take care!
Update. Looting and burning continues in various areas but not to the extent of the previous days. Our community of the Lower South Coast has so far been an island under siege in the sea of chaos but so far the area has held without the devastation of other areas with infrastructure intact. We now face another critical situation of supply. The supply arteries have been cut and we face shortages of just about everything. The supermarkets in the malls and surrounds are intact but are either closed because of intelligence that they will attempt to be targeted or operating for just two hours resulting in long lines of people. They also cannot resupply once out of stock and that includes basic necessities. Fuel stations that have also run dry.
I am fortunate in that I stock up everything in our monthly grocery run although I will run out of baby formula in the next few days. I spent a mad scramble in long queues to try and get today only to come up empty. The unrest is likely to continue so we are not out of the woods in that respect either although we’ve held out thus far. If supply is not resumed in the next few days it will reach situation critical and for some, it already has.
Lost for words, just want you to know that i’m thinking about you and your family since i first read your posts some hours ago. all i can do is not to stop doing so. all the best ! stay strong and safe !
The line outside the first supermarket I went to. I was there before sunrise and was lucky to get in after only two hours. This line eventually ended up extending much further beyond the back of this building, at an estimate probably about 200 meters from the actual entrance.
From there to pick up baby formula from my son’s Sensei. I advised her of yesterdays predicament and she somehow managed to wrangle two tins from the manager of the self same supermarket above. Luckily, as the shelves inside the store were empty of that and anything fresh or frozen. As in, completely empty. In any case, on the way to her I found a fuel station open. I was down to a quarter tank so this was also an urgency and so I stopped in that queue only to get to almost the station when they told me they were out of diesel. This line extended quite a long, long way behind me and they were making very little effort to advise of the lack of diesel so in all likelihood quite a few poor sods waited just like me only to get turned away at virtually the pump
Picked up the formula, made my home, found a filling station that was open with a 15 litre limit. Better than nothing so I filled it, this was on the way out of their through the mall parking lot, people waiting to get to Checkers supermarket. That queue snaked on around the mall building once again and just to put that picture in perspective, the closest point of the queue you see to the entrance of the actual store is approximately 250 meters…
Nobody knows the supply situation so someone from almost every household is out there trying to get what resources are available and we are still some of the lucky ones. Other communities in other towns and cities in KZN have had their centres completely looted and/or razed which means even when supply lines are restored they won’t have distribution.
Update. Things have started to return to some semblance of normalcy. I was able to get a full tank in my vehicle as well as secure a few household items that were needed. I am off for a 10 day camping trip to the Kruger on Wednesday which was planned a few months ago already and I was stressing about being able to get there but basically all roads are opened and cleared. I was also able to walk into a butcher and get all the supplies I needed for our trip. Basically, we were lucky and our infrastructure remained intact and the trickle of supplies coming through has allowed most people in this area to get what they need, and want, without too much hassle bar a few queues and having to go to the next store or filling station if the one you were at was out for that moment. We’ve dodged a bullet here; Monday and Tuesday night were particularly precarious and the police, security companies and ordinary citizens did an amazing job in keeping the mobs at bay without any breaches of the perimeters set up. Without their efforts our infrastructure would have been razed and fuel, food and basics rendered almost impossible to supply.
Some communities are not so lucky and have to still queue in lines stretching for kilometers (I am not joking) with no guarantee that they will get in or get what they require. That said, the community spirit is incredible and without being asked or at the behest of their Community Policing Forums, masses have come out of their homes and started to clean up. We saw pretty much the worst of human nature this week and now we’re also seeing some of the best. The clean up isn’t being left to the municipalities but ordinary citizens, sometimes with just a broom and bin bags, are getting stuck in and clearing away the debris.
Our President addressed the nation last night, as he has a few times this week, and has said that what happened was economic sabotage and an attempted insurrection. There are allegedly 12 ringleaders, one of whom is in custody and unnamed, whose aim it was to destabilise the government by fueling these protests in the hope that they would spread across the country. These were alleged to have sowed racial tension and violence as well. Apparently, under the guise of these seemingly random lootings, there was an attempt to attack key facilities and to disrupt road networks completely in order to have the country trapped in isolated communities. Basically, a popular uprising that didn’t even know it was an uprising until it would have been too late. As it was, KZN went up in pretty much exactly that manner, Gauteng also but very much restricted to a few townships that was very quickly brought under control unlike KZN. If other provinces had erupted the way we had down here then it is entirely likely that the government would not have been able to cope. It is therefore credit to the citizens and communities around the country that this didn’t escalate into something truly uncontrollable.
If the ring leaders were mostly from the zulu community it would make sense that KZN was worse affected, wouldn’t it? It’s being portrayed in the articles I’ve read in the UK media that it was in response to Zuma’s imprisonment. Perhaps the dividing lines aren’t so clear? There’s bound to be elements of opportunistic larceny as well, from those who couldn’t give a shit about politics or tribal allegiances.
Perhaps one day …
