Police opened fire with rubber bullets on protesters against municipal boundary changes who had broken away from a dispersing crowd at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Friday.
The marchers — from Khutsong in the Merafong municipality and Moutse — were protesting municipal boundary changes that had resulted in their towns falling under the jurisdiction of other provinces.
According to new municipal board boundaries, Merafong now falls under North West rather than Gauteng, and Moutse is not in Mpumalanga but Limpopo.
Police opened fire on youths who had broken away from the crowd after the marchers had delivered a memorandum to President Thabo Mbeki’s office, asking him to reverse the moves.
Earlier, about five or six small groups, from a few hundred protesters, set patches of the Union Buildings’ lawns alight, causing thick black smoke to fill the air.
The marchers had gathered at the Pretoria Art Museum earlier in the day and marched to the Union Buildings to hand over the memorandum to Mbeki’s office. — Sapa