Mamelodi residents shot with rubber bullets
Tshwane metro shot people with rubber bullets.
More than ten Mamelodi residents have been shot with rubber bullets during clashes between land invaders and metro police. The wounded were all from Extension 18 in Mamelodi East.
Some of the wounded were hospitalised when clashes turned violent between land invaders and police at Retshwenyegile dwellers camp in Pienaarspoort last week Wednesday.
Home owner from Extension 18 in Mamelodi East Thapelo Basson (34) was shot by a private security guard with a rubber bullet at close range.
He said he was returning from a shop when the clash between the Tshwane metro and residents of Pienaarsport started.
Basson said the Red Ants were chasing people when one of them apprehended him and accused him of being one of the protestors.
He said a security guards fired three rubber bullets a metre from him. One bullet hit him in thigh and was stuck in his leg.
“I was rushed to the Mamelodi hospital and the rubber bullet was removed. It left a big hole in my thigh,” said Basson.
The clash between the Red Ants and Retshwenyegile dweller camp residents was on the other side of the railway line in Pienaarspoort, but the Red Ants followed the land invaders to Extension 18.
Confrontation flared up after metro police and Red Ants packed in more than 15 trucks started demolishing shacks of land invaders while the invaders were still sleeping last week Wednesday.
The Red Ants demolished more than 3 000 shacks.
Basson said the pain was terrible and he could not sleep at night. He has also been unable to attend work because of the injury.
A Pienaarspoort community leader, Martin Matlala said: “What the metro police has done is wrong…shooting rubber bullets at innocent people.”
“Residents retaliated by throwing stones at metro police and the private security company who fired rubbers bullets at the angry residents,” said Matlala.
Matlala said Basson should file a complaint against Tshwane metro police and the Red Ants.
Bennet Madalane has since started rebuilding his shack and said this was the second time metro police demolished his home and he had nowhere else to go.
“The problem could have been solved a long time ago if municipal officials had not sold their RDP houses,” said Madalane.
Other resident complained they had been on a waiting list for RDP houses since 1996. Some of the people who had registered that same year have since received their RDP houses in Nellmapius and other parts of Mamelodi East.
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