Stark inequalities persist as South Africa — with the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 infections in Africa — battles the new coronavirus.
The coronavirus is highlighting South Africa’s stark inequalities, 26 years after the end of the country’s apartheid system of racial oppression, the president told the nation on Monday.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Freedom Day, the public holiday marking the country’s first democratic elections in 1994, that the fight against“Some people have been able to endure the coronavirus lockdown in a comfortable home with a fully stocked fridge, with private medical care and online learning for their children,” said Ramaphosa in the televised address.
“For millions of others, this has been a month of misery, of breadwinners not working, of families struggling to survive and of children going to bed and waking up hungry,” he said.The inequalities between South Africa’s black majority and white minority was also highlighted by Nobel Peace Prize winner, retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
South Africa is “not the fair and just country that it should be” said Tutu in a statement issued by his foundation. “The virus has done the country a ghastly favor by exposing the unsustainable foundations on which it is built … that must be urgently fixed.” South Africa has reported the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 infections in Africa, with at least 4,546 cases and 87 deaths.
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