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The three-week lockdown, which started just after midnight, is unprecedented.

It is the first time since South Africa became a democracy in 1994 that a president had stripped away the most basic freedoms of citizens - to walk, to shop, to socialise and to congregate for prayer without hindrance.

"The law is that you stay at home. The exception is for survival: food [and] health, with security forces making sure that the law is enforced," government minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, said.

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The government has even banned the sale of alcohol and cigarettes, as well as jogging or walking dogs, during the lockdown - warning that offenders risked being prosecuted, and either fined or jailed.