Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Shooting triggers wave of loathing
Police keep watch as spaza owners flee
IJIGU BLAXE broke out in a sweat. He had to pack up his life. Fast. The mob was coming.
Inexpensive tins of baby formula, bags of maize meal and tins of pilchards flew from his hands into empty boxes. “You must hurry,” a police officer, standing guard, urged the Ethiopian shopkeeper. “They are coming. You have to leave now.”
“Get all your stuff out of this shop, on to your van, quickly,” advised another police officer. “We will escort you out.”
In the two years that the 58-year-old had run his neat spaza shop in Braamfischerville, he had tried to cultivate good relationships with his customers.
But everything changed this week. Now neither he nor his staff are safe.
Since the fatal shooting of a teenager, allegedly by a Somali shopkeeper in nearby Snake Park on Monday, the looting and the violence had been spreading.
From Snake Park, attacks on spaza shops spread to Naledi, to Zola, Emndeni, and now Braamfischerville.
Blaxe now knew, like some of his compatriots, that he had no choice but to flee. “This is not good,” he said. “I won’t sleep tonight.”
“Relax. Don’t panic,” a police officer said.
That’s when police, covering the street outside his small shop, received an urgent call. Looters had struck a Somaliowned store a few streets away.
“These people are not safe here in Soweto,” said another officer.
In the ruins of Yusuf Ahmed’s spaza shop, an angry crowd shouted: “You must go, you must go.”
Julia Mhlabo, a resident of Braamfischerville, said: “We want these foreigners gone. They are shooting our children. Selling them drugs. If my child is stealing from you, you don’t shoot him. You talk to me as a mother.”
Another said: “We want what’s in that shop, we want our food, our money, on behalf of the child who died.”
Earlier, the police arrested Ahmed’s brother for illegal possession of a firearm. That’s when the crowd struck, emptying the shop of almost everything on its shelves.
Ahmed looked hurt. “Without reason, these people can do this to us at any time. We are feeling scared. Yes, I know my brother shouldn’t have had an illegal weapon, but we need it for protection.”
Ahmed said he planned to return to his country this year as he feared for his safety. “They looted my shops in Cape Town. It feels like it’s apartheid here in Soweto. ”
Zodwa Manana had little sympathy for the shopowner. “They are helping us when we have no money, they give us credit, but here they are shooting our kids. They came here to make a business. Now we want them to go back to their own country.”
As she watched Ahmed and a small group of Somalis packing what little remained intact, Manana became even more out- raged. “They run their spazas like a family. They buy goods in bulk and sell them cheaper than us. Do you know how much they sell matches for? 50c. We sell for R1. Who do you think will buy from us?”
A policeman, standing guard, monitored the evergrowing crowd suspiciously. “These people, they just want groceries for mahala,” he said, gesturing towards trampled loaves of bread.
“Wait for tonight,” said the officer. “That’s when we’re going to be really busy.”