Please see Thandy’s (Reach4Life director in Africa) message about unrest in South Africa. Above is a video of people trying to break into the complex where the R4L office is located. (Note the Phakama/Reach4Life sign just to the left of the “Rockville Market” sign.) This violence is happening throughout the country, both in urban and rural areas. Please pray for calm to be restored.
Here’s Thandy’s message from this morning:
Please pray for us. We are in the middle of the 3rd wave and things are very bad but now to top it up the country is in flames literally. It all started when former President Jacob Zuma was arrested last week [on corruption charges,
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. Protests started everywhere but this weekend it became more violent. Last night a number of malls were burnt down and looted. In the area where our offices are in Soweto it is heavily hit by violence. The mall next to us, Jabulani mall, one of the biggest malls in Johannesburg, has been attacked. Police can't do much, they are overpowered by the angry communities.
This is not just political but poverty seems to be the main problem....the arrest of Jacob Zuma just helped people to use that but just last week the government was announcing over 74% of unemployed people in the country. Job loss has been very high.
We are worried about our office complex, there is a shopping centre there and the communities are trying to break in it as well which will grant the looters access to the offices. We have never seen anything like this. No government officials are saying anything, the president tried to speak to the nation yesterday night but provoked the people more when he made a statement which seemed to be blaming all the problems right now on one tribal group, Zulu people and we woke up today to a worse situation than the weekend.
Please pray!!
Thandy
