Durban - The body of an infant was discovered in a bin toppled over by protesting taxi drivers in Durban’s CBD on Tuesday.
Paramedics cordoned off the area and covered the infant’s body.
The matter will now be subject to a criminal investigation.
Taxi drivers and owners blockaded major routes in Durban on Tuesday to protest against their vehicles being impounded by metro police.
Thousands of commuters coming into Durban by minibus taxi were forced to get out and walk.
The affected routes were the N3 east-bound, Higginson Highway and the M4 coming in from the south.
The National Taxi Alliance spokesman Bhekisisa Nzuza said all taxis were being stopped and none would operate until their vehicles impounded by Metro Police were released.
He claimed about 300 taxis had been taken off the road for not having permits.
“It’s the very same authorities who centralised the process of getting permits from Pietermaritzburg, with the whole of KZN applying for permits in the same place, causing massive delays,” Nzuza said.
undefinedThe owners and drivers gathered at King Dinuzulu Park, toyi-toying and heckling passing buses.
Police fired rubber bullets and teargas to disperse the protesters after a group joining them from the centre of town stoned buses.
One bus had its door damaged and an officer had to kick it open to let passengers escape. Three of them were treated by paramedics while other paramedics treated the drivers of a van and car which had crashed into the bus as it tried to escape the protesters.
“We are now going to the pound, at the old drive-in, where our vehicles are being kept, we want them released today,” Durban regional secretary of the South African National Taxi Council, Yusuf Khaliva said.
IOL and Daily News