Fierce Rioting Wreaks Havoc in South Africa
Fierce rioting in Cape Town’s mixed-race districts left office blocks and dozens of stores in ruins today, and the unofficial death toll rose to 30.
Gangs of youths in Mitchells Plain, Mannenberg and Lansdowne today torched and looted delivery trucks, hurled rocks at cars and police patrols and blocked roads with piles of blazing tires and debris.
Police said 28 people have been killed since a wave of arson, looting and stone-throwing began Wednesday in Cape Town’s biggest black township, Guguletu, and spread to engulf the five major mixed-race districts. There were unofficial reports of two blacks killed in the Cape Town area.
Burning Shops Lit Sky
Overnight, burning shops lighted the sky over Bellville, Athlone and Swartklip, residents reported.
Three Common Market foreign ministers arrived today for a three day fact-finding visit. The trio, Jacques Poos of Luxembourg, Hans van den Broek of the Netherlands and Giulio Andreotti of Italy, planned to meet this afternoon with Foreign Minister Roelof F. (Pik) Botha in Pretoria and with President Pieter W. Botha in Cape Town on Saturday.
Poos said at Johannesburg’s Jan Smuts Airport that the ministers planned to make known their “strong preoccupations about the apartheid system, to the abolition of which we wish to contribute.”
Thursday’s rioting. Page 14.
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