'Mr President we are in the middle of a food crisis. It's war out here,' warned Joanie Fredericks, a community leader in Mitchells Plain township in Cape Town.
Informal traders and waste-pickers queue for food at a Soweto parking lot. AFP/MARCO LONGARI
“People have broken into tuck shops. They have attacked people. The simple reason is because they are hungry,” she said from a kitchen dishing cooked meals into packs for distribution to the poor. Already, several violent protests have broken out across the country over access to food parcels handed out by authorities.
Four weeks into a 35-day lockdown poor communities are facing food shortages as incomes dry up. AFP/MARCO LONGARIA study by the national statistics agency in 2017 found that 20 percent of households in the country of 57 million, had inadequate access to food.“It’s a very, very dangerous situation,” said Scott Drimie, of the think-tank Southern Africa Food Lab.Already South Africa has a history of frequent protests over basics like water and housing crisis.
People were shown carting away baskets filled with unpaid goods in a township in the Western Cape province. Aerial view of chairs arranged in order to maintain social distancing at a parking lot in Soweto for food distribution. AFP/MARCO LONGARI
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