Protesters, elderly woman injured after Tshwane metro cops fire rubber bullets
13 June 2018
Tshwane metro police have allegedly shot and injured several people, including an elderly woman, after they used rubber bullets to disperse protesters who had blockaded several roads in Eersterust.
The woman was not taking part in the protests.
"People were busy speaking to the station commander of a police station and the next moment metro police arrived in a Nyala and a bakkie and started shooting people with rubber bullets," said a resident.
Roads were strewn with rubble and burning tyres on Wednesday morning, as residents vowed to continue protesting until Tshwane Mayor Solly Msimanga addressed them.
Community members told News24 that a lack of housing and power outages which occur weekly in the area was at the heart of the matter.
"There are a lot of plots of land, so why doesn’t government do as they do everywhere else and build us RDP houses,” said a resident who did not want to be named.
Several other residents told News24 that it was only Eersterust that was affected by the weekly power outages. They claimed that the lights remained on in neighbouring communities such as Mamelodi and Silverton.
"There are certain times that the electricity is switched off and then later switched back on again," said one resident.
The situation in the area is still tense.
