Itumeleng oa Mahabane
FORMER members of Phola Park’s self-defence units not selected as South African Police Service reservists appear to be behind this week’s spate of killings in the East Rand shack
Seven people have died and 10, including a two- year-old child, injured since Sunday night, when gunmen wielding AK47s and 9mm pistols opened fire on a family in their shack. Although community leaders and the police have downplayed reports of SDU involvement, some residents maintain that former members of the SDUs were involved in the killings.
A former policeman who lives in Phola Park said he saw a group of men running to a white Ford immediately after the shooting. He said he recognised them as members of the SDUs who had been left out of the SAPS.
But Gauteng MEC for Safety and Security Jessie Duarte said the violence had been the work of criminals calling themselves SDUs and that since the disbanding of SDUs last year, there had been various incidents of individuals committing crimes while purporting to be SDU
A Gauteng provincial government spokesperson said about 900 people were chosen by the Command Structures of the SDU for inclusion into police reservist forces.
Nthato Mbotho, father of the children who were wounded in Sunday night’s attack and who was wounded himself, agreed SDU members had been responsible for the attack. Speaking from his hospital bed he said unless members were disarmed, violence in the camp would continue. He attributed the violence to a feud between people from Ncobo in the former Transkei and SDUs — although residents say some of the attackers themselves are from that part of the
Although many weapons were handed in during the amnesty period last year, it has been difficult to determine the overall success, given that SDU members were responsible themselves for handing over the weapons.
Duarte said a police objective was ”to move into the area and conduct random search and seizures under the Arms and Ammunitions Act, so as to tone down the number of illegal weapons in the area.”