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Alleged looter's body found in ruins of rammed guard house

Aron Hyman Reporter
A police officer arrests a looter inside a Cambridge Food store in Vosloorus on July 12 2021.
A police officer arrests a looter inside a Cambridge Food store in Vosloorus on July 12 2021.
Image: Alaister Russell/The Sunday Times

Paramedics and police have discovered the body of an alleged looter under a collapsed guard house rammed by a truck during riots in Pinetown, KwaZulu-Natal.

The man, who paramedics estimated was about 30 years old, was entrapped in the debris after the structure he was in in the Westmead industrial district collapsed earlier this week.

He was one of more than 200 people killed in the riots which rocked Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal this past week after the incarceration of former president Jacob Zuma.

The industrial districts of Westmead, Pinetown, and New Germany became looting hotspots in what President Cyril Ramaphosa in a speech on Friday night termed a “deliberate, co-ordinated, and well planned attack” on SA’s democracy.

According to Emer-G-Med emergency services, their paramedics received a call for assistance at 11pm on Saturday in the Westmead area, near Pinetown.

“Reports from the scene indicated that during the recent looting, a truck had rammed a guard house causing the structure to collapse,” Emer-G-Med said in a statement.

“On closer inspection the business owners believed there to be a body beneath the rubble

“A male believed to be approximately 30 years of age was found entrapped beneath the debris and hydraulic rescue tools were used to extricate him. He was declared deceased on arrival,” read the statement.

It was believed the man was a looter entrapped and killed when the structure collapsed earlier this week.

TimesLIVE