Dylan Bettencourt
The Qatari government has called the shooting in Soweto in which 15 people lost their lives an act of terrorism, classifying the crime before the South African police have done so.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Qatar whipped up a storm when it released a statement on Twitter implying it knew the motive behind the shooting, despite South African police insisting that it remains unknown.
“The State of Qatar expresses its strong condemnation and denunciation of the shooting incident which took place in the suburb of Soweto in Johannesburg and led to deaths and injuries,” the statement read.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs affirms the State of Qatar’s firm position on the rejection of violence and terrorism, regardless of the motives and reasons.”
In response to the statement, South African head of public diplomacy Clayson Monyela announced that following discussions with Qatar, the statement would be dropped.
“Following my discussions with the Qatar Ambassador to South Africa & the Qatar Foreign Ministry Spokesperson, our good friends [the Ministry of Foreign Affairs] have since withdrawn and deleted the statement on the shooting incident in Soweto,” he wrote on Twitter.
As well as revealing the “cause” of the shooting, Qatar offered their condolences to the families affected.
“The Ministry expresses the State of Qatar’s condolences to the families of the victims and to the government and people of South Africa.”
South African social media users were left puzzled by the statement, firstly by Qatar’s description of Soweto as a “suburb” as well as their attempts to classify the crime themselves.
“This is weird to even call what happened a terrorism act when we as a country haven’t reached that conclusion,” one person wrote on Twitter.
Several other social media users questioned how and why Qatar thought it necessary to label the massacre as terrorism without enough information.
Two separate incidents on Saturday night saw at least 19 people lose their lives in separate tavern shootings.
Image source: @DailySun
