A fire engulfs Campsdrift Park in Pietermaritzburg
(Picture: SIBONELO ZUNGU via REUTERS)A desperate mother was forced to throw her baby from a burning building to a crowd below, as riots in South Africa intensify.
More than 70 people have been killed in days of violence after the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma.
People looting shops in the central business district of Durban allegedly started a fire that spread to homes of those living on the second floor and higher.
Dramatic footage shows the moment a mother drops her child from the smoking building into a crowd of people who rushed to help those trapped in the apartment block on Tuesday.
Neighbours that caught the baby promptly rushed to get ladders to help others escape.
The mother was reunited with her baby, but was too emotional to talk, the BBC reported, with firefighters arriving 20 minutes later.
More than 1,200 people have been arrested in the lawlessness that has raged in two provinces including a community radio station ransacked and forced off the air Tuesday and Covid vaccination centres closed, disrupting urgently needed inoculations.
Many of the deaths in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces occurred in chaotic stampedes as thousands of people stole food, electric appliances, liquor and clothing from stores, police Maj Gen Mathapelo Peters said in a statement on Tuesday night.
He said 27 deaths were being investigated in KwaZulu-Natal province and 45 in Gauteng province. In addition to the people crushed, he said police were investigating deaths caused by explosions when people tried to break into ATM machines, as well as other fatalities caused by shootings.
The violence broke out after Zuma began serving a 15-month sentence for contempt of court on Thursday. He had refused to comply with a court order to testify at a state-backed inquiry investigating allegations of corruption while he was president from 2009 to 2018.
