Photos: Protesters run riot in Cape Town

Hundreds of protesters looted shops, overturned trash cans and smashed car windows in Cape Town on Wednesday as police struggled to contain a mob rampaging through the heart of the city, which is South Africa's legislative capital and top tourist destination.

Riot police in full body armor fired a stun grenade and cordoned off roads in the city center, where a large crowd, many wearing regalia of the country's ruling African National Congress, were protesting against a lack of state housing in the only metropolis governed by the Democratic Alliance, South Africa's official opposition party.

The protesters, who also set plastic trash cans alight in the street outside the provincial legislature, targeted informal traders and ransacked their stores. (Many such traders are migrants from other African countries whose communities have been victims of repeated waves of xenophobic violence.)

"We have to protect ourselves from these thieves," said Senegalese trader Seyni Diop, who armed himself with a metal pole in order to protect his stall in Green Market Square, a popular site for foreign tourists.

Andile Lili, an expelled member of the provincial council who organized the protest, told reporters he would ramp up activity against the Democratic Alliance ahead of next year's general elections.

Lili is already facing criminal charges for flinging human excrement in public places, part of protests to highlight the lack of proper toilets and sanitation in the vast shantytowns that house much of the city's impoverished black population.

Reuters