Good morning colleagues and members of the media,

Thank you very much for joining us here this morning. The purpose of this briefing is to provide an update of our response to the looting of spaza shops in Soweto. We have strengthened police deployments throughout Soweto and other affected areas. We are pleased to report that after the flare up yesterday afternoon, the situation was relatively calm overnight.

When we briefed the media at midday yesterday, we had arrested 68 people and confiscated 8 firearms. Since then, the total number of arrests has increased to 121 people who have been arrested for various crimes which include murder, attempted murder, possession of unlicensed firearms and stolen property, public violence and fraud. The number of firearms confiscated has now increased to 11. Ten of these firearms were taken from foreign nationals.

Yesterday, 38 people appeared in the Protea Magistrate’s Court for public violence and possession of stolen goods. Their case was remanded to 28 January for further investigation.

The suspect who was arrested for murder and attempted murder also appeared in court yesterday and his case was also remanded to 28 January. He was denied bail.

Today 44 suspects will be appearing in court and 39 suspects who were arrested last night will appear in court on Monday.

Various items such as fridges and groceries valued at thousands of rands were seized during the arrests.

We would like to thank the members of the public for providing the information that led to the arrests. Police will continue to take strong action against those people involved in the looting and we appeal to business people not take the law into their own hands.

Police will continue to assist the victims of the looting.