South Africa's president assigns senior officials to quell ethnic unrest with Indians.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Friday that he has assigned his police minister and the premier of KwaZulu Natal province to a township in Durban, amid escalating tensions between the Indian and Black communities in the country, days after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar spoke with his South African counterpart Naledi Pandor and expressed concern over widespread violence and rioting in that country.

Social media posts following the violence preceding the arrest of former President Jacob Zuma on July 7 created tensions between the two communities in the Phoenix township and adjacent areas. Concerned by the violence, Jaishankar met with Pandor on Wednesday, who assured him that her government was doing all possible to maintain law and order.

Ramaphosa visited Ethekwini, a metropolitan municipality that covers Durban and nearby cities, for a brief assessment of the situation following the region's ongoing violence and looting. He did not, however, visit the most severely impacted suburbs of Phoenix and Pietermaritzburg, the provincial capital of KwaZulu-Natal.

Edited posts from Ethekwini Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda have also surfaced on social media, modified to generate a highly incendiary message against Indians. Kaunda had quoted someone else in the original post to call for everyone to exhibit caution and for calm to prevail.

Law and order would be restored in Phoenix, according to Police Minister Cele, with the deployment of soldiers. Cele blamed the situation on criminals rather than those protesting Zuma's detention.

Protests in the eastern state of KwaZulu-Natal began last week in response to former South African President Jacob Zuma's imprisonment. The country's top judicial body, the Constitutional Court, sentenced him to 15 months in prison on June 29 for refusing to appear before a commission probing corruption charges during his presidency from 2009 to 2018.