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Protests which began after former South African President Jacob
Zuma handed himself into police to serve a 15-month sentence
have descended into days of violence and looting. The BBC has
spoken to a few of the people caught in the middle.

"We are on fire," Ian - not his real name - tells the BBC from
riot-hit Durban in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province.

In the last three days, he reckons he has managed an hour or two
of sleep at a time. He and his team - who work for a private
security company - are surviving on energy drinks as they wait
and watch.

They have given up trying to stop the looting which has
destroyed so many buildings since protests calling for South
Africa's former President Jacob Zuma to be freed from jail began
last week. Ian has heard reports of three security guards being
killed since the weekend.

Now, they are just protecting the neighbourhoods where they live.

"We've gone to a place where we are going to watch them
stealing, we are not interfering with them - don't harm us."

In another part of Durban, a woman is preparing to make the 20-
minute drive to her family from her home in a badly hit
residential area. She doesn't know if she will make it, or be
turned back by one of the blockades which have popped up on the
city's roads.

But she knows she cannot bear another night of lying in bed
listening to the gunshots.

"I am so scared," the woman - who asked not to be named - told
the BBC.

"It literally feels like being in a war zone with gunshots,
fires and smoke going up everywhere for the last two days."

When the smoke clears, the best view of what is happening in
Durban is from the air.

Jayshree Parasuramen, traffic reporter on East Coast Radio's
helicopter, could see it all: factories burning, trucks moved to
block roads and "thousands" of people looting shops and
warehouses, with cars waiting to collect their ill-gotten goods.

"They formed a shield around the areas they were looting," she
explains. "So, the entrances and exits were blocked, and a lot
of people crowding around that area to not allow anyone or any
motorists to pass."

The people, she said, were also "heavily armed".

"The amount of gunshots that we could hear was unbelievable -
and then petrol bombs. We couldn't even hover around those areas
because of them opening fire, and then eventually we just had to
land, because of the live ammunition that they were using."

Officials - all the way up to President Cyril Ramaphosa - have
all suggested the protests were hijacked by criminal elements.

Others believe the hardships exacerbated by the coronavirus
pandemic created a tinderbox which just needed a spark to set it
alight. The spark, in this case, was jailing Mr Ramaphosa's
predecessor for contempt of court.

"We knew, when we locked down again, this was bound to happen,
because the longer you leave people hungry, these events would
take place," Eldrin Naidoo told the BBC from Johannesburg.

From freedom fighter to president to jail
Zuma, the Guptas, and the sale of South Africa
But, as Tumelo Mosetlhi points out, in the long run it will only
harm those who are already struggling.

"To see people's shops and businesses being gutted - yes, people
are hungry today, but tomorrow there will be more unemployment,
more pain, more suffering in a nation that is trying to recover
and rebuild itself."

For the moment, those living in the areas at the heart of the
violence cannot think about the future.

"You don't know if you are going to make it to tomorrow - that's
the feeling right now," Jayshree Parasuramen says.

Ian and his team, meanwhile, have given up listening to the
radio for information, and are now just watching for the gangs
to approach.

"Saps [South African Police Service] are just inundated with
calls that they are not taking calls anymore," he says.

"So we are calling on the local men in the area to try to come
out and defend to keep their families safe."

But there isn't much they can do, if things go wrong. Rumours
that people have been filling up canisters with petrol nearby
have them all on edge.

"We carry paintballs [in our guns]," Ian explains. "So you know,
we would be defending ourselves against petrol bombs with
paintballs."

On Monday, the government announced it would deploy the army to
help the overwhelmed police service, but those the BBC spoke to
for this article had seen little evidence of troops in their
areas.

But officials have yet to declare a state of emergency, and
everyone feels let down.

"The army only got here when it was already in smoke," says Ian.

"It's meant to go to hotspots but it is going to places that
aren't even affected yet. We are lost for words."

"The focus should have been on the army keeping the civilians
safe," says the woman hoping to reach her sister.

"It's not normal that civilians are expected to ward off all
these rioters," she adds.

"How can it not be a state of emergency? How much cheaper can
life get in South Africa?"

All pictures are subject to copyright. Additional reporting by
the BBC's South Africa team.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57822460

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