SAHRC hears unrest began before the July riots

"We believe they started months before when we had the problem of trucks burning, and we believe that what this was - July - was a frontal attack on the entire supply value chain of the country," Cas Coovadia said.

Coovadia testified at the South African Human Rights Commission hearings into the riots on Monday.

He said it was clear that the intention was to destroy major infrastructure.

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"A few months before the attack on trucks, you are destroying the arterial that enables the flow of goods from KwaZulu-Natal to Gauteng and back.

"You then have July, where houses are destroyed, where millions of rands worth of goods are kept, goods to be distributed across the country from KwaZulu-Natal. Cyber attacks on Transnet and then there was the attack on the retail outlet. Our entire supply chain."

Over 350 people were killed in the violence in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

Giving oral evidence on Monday, eThekwini Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said the murders of black people in Phoenix should be seen as an act of racism.

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"So when people decide a child who was fetched from a hospital by the mother calling an Uber service to come and fetch them from hospital, then they are stopped the driver of the Uber is killed in front of them. The child, an innocent life who just got out of hospital, is killed.

"The mother who was unarmed, a vulnerable person, a woman of this country is also shot at. What do you call that? I call it racism. There is no other better word."