Police keep watch as Jeppestown calms after overnight looting

Police are on high alert after “hostel dwellers” looted shops in Johannesburg on Sunday night.

Police spokesperson‚ Brigadier Mathapelo Peters‚ said they had not linked the looting of businesses – reportedly owned by foreigners – in Jeppestown to recent xenophobic tension in Gauteng.

“We are not confirming that these were xenophobic attacks purely because the business owners are yet to come forward to open cases‚ so we do not know who these businesses belong to‚” she said.

''A group of hostel dwellers from the Jeppe hostel went on the rampage and attacked and looted some of the businesses next to the hostel.''

She said public order police and tactical response teams had been deployed and clashed with the looters‚ who attacked them with stones.

Police arrested one suspect. The situation was “normal” by 4am on Monday although police remained in the area to monitor the situation.

“It looks calm but police are there to make sure incidents do not recur‚” said Peters.

Asked whether the police were concerned about the spread of the xenophobic “unrest” which started in Pretoria last week she said: “Our intelligence has been on the ground before the beginning of this unrest‚ so we are closely monitoring the area. We can unfortunately not disclose what that intelligence entails‚ but we will deploy and base our operations based on the intelligence that we receive.”

Jeppestown‚ east of the Johannesburg city centre‚ was a hot-spot during previous waves of xenophobic attacks – in 2008 and 2015 – when residents attacked foreign nationals and looted their shops.