Four SANBS donation centres vandalised

Four South African National Blood Service (SANBS) donation centres have fallen victim to the vandalism plaguing South Africa.

On Monday, while President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed the nation about the violent protests, a few men could be seen in what looked like live footage breaking into one of the donation centres.

SANBS spokesperson Khensani Mahlangu said: “The looters managed to get away with specialised equipment and consumables used at the offices as well as on the field at mobile blood drives.

Mahlangu added no blood was stolen as it was not stored at the centres.

“While our blood stocks were stable, we do anticipate some difficulty should our donor centres remain closed for a prolonged period of time. This would affect our ability to collect and issue life-saving blood, platelets and plasma.”

A question South Africans asked after seeing warehouses go up in flames was: could the ongoing violence lead to fuel and food shortages?

Automobile Association spokesperson Layton Beard said the association had not received any reports about fuel shortages.

“There appeared to be sufficient stock of fuel but we don’t know how long that stock will last, [especially] because the N3 is closed for all purposes,” he said.

Beard added the closure of the Durban port would not make it easy for fuel supplies.

Violence monitor and analyst Mary de Haas said the government was to blame for the past few days of violent protests and looting.

“What started this was incitement, which also posed as a challenge to the government, but we also had to bear in mind we were a criminalised society, where criminals were on the bandwagon and have gone to town.

“It was quiet obvious from last Thursday, when threats were made, that the situation wouldn’t be good and it was also at that stage we should have had soldiers on standby and to guard businesses and infrastructure,” she said.

Haas added that a rail service to move goods by train at a dire time like this was necessary.