6 July 2023
Police are investigating the death of a man killed during a protest on Japhta Masemola Road in Khayelitsha on Thursday morning. Photo: Masixole Feni
Police are investigating a murder case after a man died of a gunshot wound during a protest in Cape Town.
On Thursday morning, protesting residents burned tyres on the N2 and at the corner of Japhta Masemola Road and Mew Way near Taiwan informal settlement, Khayelitsha.
Western Cape SA Police Service (SAPS) spokesperson Captain FC Van Wyk said, “Although the incident occurred during the protest, there is no indication that the murder relates to the protest.”
“The motive is unknown, but SAPS can confirm that no SAPS member discharged a firearm in the direction where the body was found.”
Police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Malcolm Pojie said Public Order Police and Law Enforcement officers had been deployed in the area following “sporadic incidents of tyres being burned”.
No one has been arrested, he said.
The protesters want their area to be upgraded by the City of Cape Town and they want to be moved to temporary housing while the upgrade is completed.
About two weeks ago, they marched to the Western Cape Department of Human Settlements to hand over a memorandum. Protesters said the department had not responded.
Mzoxolo Nkanti, who attended the previous protest outside the department, said the shack dwellers protested on the N2 because they didn’t have money to hire taxis to take them to the department’s offices.
“Now we will protest here until the minister sends senior officials or comes here himself to address us about our memorandum,” he said.
Nkanti and other shack dwellers showed GroundUp flooded shacks and filthy footpaths and streets.
“We will protest until the minister comes and pulls us out of this squalor,” he said.
Community leader Nontombi Ndwalaza said the protesters had thrown rubbish onto the N2 because there had been no rubbish collection since June.
“We didn’t damage passing cars. We merely blocked the road with burning tyres and turned cars away, but the police fired rubber bullets and teargas at us,” said community leader Solomon Matshoba.
Golden Arrow spokesperson Bronwen Dyke-Beyer said services had been disrupted. “We had to put a number of diversions in place for the safety of our employees and passengers.”
Western Cape Department of Infrastructure head Jacqueline Gooch acknowledged that a memorandum had been handed over by residents of Taiwan “raising concerns in respect of living conditions and service delivery such as lack of refuse collection, violent crime and poor lighting”.
“The department has undertaken to escalate these matters to the City of Cape Town, the South African Police Services and Eskom – where appropriate,” she said.
Gooch said the department had budgeted for the Taiwan development to be implemented once the City had approved a land-use application submitted last September. A meeting with residents is scheduled for 15 July.