Soldiers towered over youngsters in South Africa’s Soweto township, forcing them to do push-ups and roll on the floor as punishment for not adhering to a lockdown meant to halt the spread of COVID-19.
Caught on camera and circulated on social media, they added to a string of videos purporting to show violence by security forces deployed to enforce curfew and confinement across Africa.
Rubber bullets, tear gas and whips have been used to maintain “social distancing” and to discipline citizens caught outside their homes without valid reason.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“It seems to be the only way in which authorities know how to deal with the populace, through violence and humiliation,” Amnesty International executive director for South Africa Shenilla Mohamed said, adding that abuse had also been reported in Zimbabwe, Kenya and Nigeria.
South African police are investigating the deaths of three citizens allegedly killed by patrols for defying the lockdown, which went into force on Friday last week.
“That’s almost the same amount of people that have died from coronavirus,” Mohamed said, referring to the nation’s latest death toll of five.
One person was allegedly shot by police on his way home from a bar — a direct breach of regulations prohibiting the sale of alcohol during the 21-day shutdown.
South African Minister of Defense and Military Veterans Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has condemned the alleged heavy-handedness and vowed to withdraw soldiers caught abusing their powers.
The novel coronavirus has infected more than 5,690 people in Africa and killed at least 195, an Agence France-Presse tally showed.
The pandemic has been slow to reach the continent, despite an acceleration in the past few weeks, and numbers of infections remain relatively low compared with other parts of the world.
Dozens of African governments have made use of the extra time to roll out curfews and shutdowns earlier than their worse-hit counterparts in the West.
However, such measures are difficult to enact in countries where most people live in poverty and work informally, often in packed urban slums with little access to sanitation.
“If we take measures which starve everybody, they will quickly end up being defied,” Beninese President Patrice Talon said on Sunday, adding that his country lacked the means to enforce public confinement.
As governments have struggled to keep citizens indoors, their security forces have been quick to fall back on intimidation tactics, raising widespread concern.
“It is unacceptable to see such inhuman and degrading treatment against the population,” Canadian Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo Nicolas Simard said on Twitter, in response to a video of masked policemen beating a young man to the ground in the capital, Kinshasa, which went into lockdown last week.
“This is uncalled for and inappropriate,” Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho said on Twitter after police charged hundreds of commuters waiting for a ferry in the Kenyan port city.
Clad in riot gear, they fired tear gas at the crowd before the start of a dusk-to-dawn curfew, forcing people to the ground and whipping them.
The Mombasa Law Society denounced the police intervention as “excessive” and “detestable.”
Meanwhile, the Uganda People’s Defence Force apologized for a “high-handed” response after security forces violently cleared the streets in the capital, Kampala, causing an outcry.
In a separate incident, two men were hospitalized after being shot by police for breaching a restriction on public transport.
Footage from Senegal last week surfaced showing policemen beating people found outside after a night curfew.
In one video, officials force three young men to do squats after they were caught exercising at night.
“No torture, no inhuman degrading treatment and no excessive use of force,” former Amnesty International west and central Africa director Alioune Tine said.
Police eventually assured that all “excessive interventions” had been punished.
Yet, the risk of a beating has done little to stop citizens across the continent from pursuing their daily activities.
The need to make a living trumps both fears of catching the virus and encountering the police, prompting law enforcement officers to step up their show of force.
More than 1,100 people have been arrested for lockdown breaches in South Africa, while Ivory Coast has detained 450 for failing to respect curfew.
Ivorian Human Rights Movement head Doumbia Yacouba said that many of the detainees had been beaten and mistreated.
“It is unacceptable and it adds to the psychosis created by coronavirus,” he said.
Further cause for concern emerged when Kenyan police called for an inquiry into the death of a 13-year-old boy felled by a bullet allegedly fired by police as they cleared a slum area last week.
In South Africa, three young children were wounded when security officials allegedly opened fire against a man.
Human Rights Watch has called for urgent investigations into all abuse allegations and “disproportionate” use of force.
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