Mob violence turns Jo'burg CBD into war zone : Mail & Guardian Online

Marshall Street is criss-crossed with makeshift barricades of rusty barbed wire, tyres and chunks of concrete. In Main Street, shops have been literally disembowelled, their heavy-duty Jozi iron shutters wrenched off and their interiors cleaned out, stripped of every Pringle jumper and pair of Converse sneakers.

Police officers in bulletproof vests, with shotguns slung over their shoulders, stand guard at intersections, firing warning shots over the heads of would-be looters.

Helicopters clatter above us constantly and sirens and alarms wail all day.

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Nomsa Sibanda tells how she heard the looters outside her window, talking about who would get to keep the satellite dish from the Radium Hotel where she lives. The hotel is mostly occupied by foreigners.

"Since Zuma won the ANC presidency, they think they own South Africa. If they meet someone in the street and that person can't answer questions in isiZulu, they insult them and beat them," she says.

It's a story we are to hear over and over again -- and not just from foreigners. South Africans who speak Shangaan, Venda and Pedi report being attacked and told to go back to Limpopo.

The Methodist Church was also targeted - it's a church that has been widely in the news and that is sheltering homeless.

Even although we've had riots and murders and rapes for seven days on end in Johannesburg's townships, apparently now, with Joburg CBD caught in the crossfire, this has become breaking news in Europe. I'm pretty disgusted by that.