South Africa’s President, Cyril Ramaphosa is obviously angry with the United States Embassy for issuing a warning of a possible weekend “terrorist” attack in the country without consulting his government, describing it as “unfortunate.”
The US embassy had, yesterday, October 26, posted the alert on its website and identified the potential target as Sandton, a suburb in the country’s financial hub of Johannesburg.
Sandton, a collection of high-end shops and lofty office blocks and banks, is commonly referred to as the richest square mile on the African continent. The alert said the attack could occur there on Saturday.
Reacting during a news conference, the country’s President said: “it is quite unfortunate the US issued that type of warning without having any type of discussion with us.”
Ramaphosa said that any form of alert of that nature would have to come from the government of the republic of South Africa and that it is unfortunate that another government should issue such a threat as to send panic amongst our people.
Ramaphosa, who was answering a question during a joint press conference with the visiting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, stressed that Pretoria is “working around the clock to verify and to look very closely at this message that came from the United States.”
