Forty-eight people were arrested while protesting about service delivery in Mamelodi East, near Pretoria, on Wednesday, police said.
Spokesperson Captain Julia Claasen said the crowd dispersed peacefully after they had barricaded roads and burned tyres from the early hours of the morning.
”Everything is back to normal now and the streets have been cleared,” she said on Wednesday evening.
There were no reported violent incidents or injuries during the protest that took place for most of the day.
In addition to service delivery, protesters were demanding houses they said had been promised to them by the municipality.
At one point, the situation was calmed down for a while after a member of the mayoral committee for housing, Absalom Ditshoke, sent two representatives to talk to the protesters.
However, the protest erupted again at about 2pm when the representatives left.
”They tried to vandalise a nearby bakery but the police intervened,” she said, adding that the situation was tense at the time.
Residents said that they had resisted being moved from land they currently occupied because the promised houses had not been forthcoming.
”The land they’re occupying is not suitable for residential purposes as it is on a mountain and it’s full of rocks,” Claasen said.
The land belongs to the municipality and the residents lived there illegally, she said.
The protesters had built shacks on the mountainous area.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the protesters met with housing officials and came to an agreement, which the leaders are to communicate to the residents, Claasen said. — Sapa