/ 16 February 2001

VIOLENCE SWEEPS SOWETO, ALEXANDRA

VIOLENCE has erupted in a second Johannesburg township as some 700 residents of Soweto set fire to local council offices, burnt a councillor’s car and smashed another, witnesses said. Firefighters summoned to the blaze had to withdraw as the crowd pelted them with stones. The violence flared at the end of a meeting called by two councillors to explain why residents of the nearby township of Alexandra were being relocated in Soweto while Alexandra shanties were replaced with solid houses. Police fired rubber bullets, stun grenades and teargas in Alexandra on Tuesday, wounding one man, as about 120 residents of the slums armed with branches, spades, golf clubs and dustbin lids protested their forced relocation. – AFP.