July unrest key witnesses to continue giving evidence at the SAHRC hearings

Key witnesses will on Wednesday morning continue to give evidence at the South African Human Rights Commission hearings into the July 2021 unrest in Gauteng.

About 350 people died in a week of violence and looting that caused billions of rand in damages to businesses and infrastructure in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

The hearings began on Monday in Sandton north of Johannesburg.

On Tuesday, former Minister of State Security Agency (SSA) Ayanda Dlodlo denied allegations that intelligence information was withheld from state organs that dealt with the unrest.

She refuted claims that intelligence information was not shared with role-players, including the police.

“Between the period of May 2021 when the riots started on the 10th of July we had issued some yellow, red and orange alerts. All of this goes to the structures that I have mentioned. To enable them to plan [and] to mitigate the risks that would have been indicated in these alerts.”

“At the time when I was still in the SSA, we did warn about growing instability that undermined the authority of the state. The national intelligence estimate was presented to the national security council and adopted on the same date, the 01 December 2020,” says the minister.

Gauteng leg of HRC hearings into July unrest: