Bread theft allegedly sparked looting in Soweto

It is alleged a bread delivery truck was the catalyst of looting which targeted foreign-owned businesses in Soweto on Wednesday night.

Several foreign-owned shops in areas including Orlando, Jabulani, Zola, Naledi, Emndeni, Moletsane, White City, Zondi and Rockville were attacked and stripped bare.

The director of Epupeng Project Distributions, Oupa Ngake, whose security company guards foreign-owned shops around Soweto, said one of his guards informed him about the robbery that led to the looting.

“A group of six boys robbed a shop and also jumped into a Sasko delivery truck to steal loaves of bread. That’s when the community members jumped into the truck to steal bread and it escalated from the trucks to shops in other areas of Soweto,” said Ngake.

Ngake was concerned about his employees who might end up without jobs due to the incident, saying “we supply milk to more than 12,600 foreign-owned shops and now 50 people have to stay at home,” he said.

“We lost more than R300,000 and this will take us more than a week to recover,” he said.

Khan Salam from Apollo Supermarket in Emndeni Extension lost everything, including his shoes and cellphone.

“This is not the first time they loot from my shop. I lost more than R1.3 million worth of stock since last year,” Salam said.

Emmanuel Dube from Zimbabwe was also a target but believes he survived because he is Zimbabwean.

“I was very lucky last night when they noticed that I am from Zimbabwe and they told me not to worry. They told me that they only wanted to take stock from people who are not Africans,” he said.

Police spokesperson Captain Kay Makhubela said they will continue to monitor the situation.

Sixteen suspects have been arrested and some of the property recovered includes a stolen motor vehicle and fridges.

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