Residents of Swalala, outside Hazyview in Mpumalanga, have broken lockdown rules to steal meat from a truck that was involved in an accident.

According to the residents, they pounced after the meat delivery truck rammed into a tree on Friday morning. 

Some of the residents told Sowetan the driver of the meat delivery truck lost control of the vehicle.

“Yes, the driver was there, we saw that he’s transporting meat to big shops and we helped ourselves. We couldn’t resist because we don’t have enough food while we are locked down in our houses. We asked the driver if he’s okay and then we took the meat and more and more people came from their houses to loot too,” said a community member who didn’t want to be named.

In a video clip which Sowetan has a seen, a person in a passing car is heard asking his brother to stop the car so that they can loot too. However, the brother responds that, “the food is expired”. However, the younger brother is heard insisting that people are grabbing the meat and they should also do the same. At the end the brother agrees to do a U-turn so that they can take meat too.

Spokesperson of the Mpumalanga department of community safety, security & liaison Moeti Mmusi condemned the behaviour, saying it compromises the lockdown regulations and road safety. 

“As the department we condemn such behavior from our community because that on its own compromises the lockdown regulations in terms of curbing the spread of coronavirus because they caused a stampede when they all ran for the meat. Again it also compromises road safety because cars are being distracted and that also constitutes criminality because what they did was straight theft,” said Mmusi.