A fight between residents in two informal settlements over illegal electricity connections has left one man dead, another in hospital and two homes petrol bombed.
Some residents in the Philippi informal settlement of Nevernever packed up and moved out yesterday because they feared more violence after Sunday’s clashes.
Police have stepped up patrols in the area and have called in colleagues from other stations to assist them in keeping the peace.
Nowethu Sautana, 68, who said she was a community leader in Nevernever, said she had been sitting at home on Sunday with a friend, whose name she gave only as Dorah, when she heard people calling her.
The group outside her house asked her to go to neighbouring settlement Marcus Garvey and illegally set up electrical connections for them.
Sautana said homes in Nevernever, which was established in 2001, did not have electricity, and some residents went to Marcus Garvey to steal electrical connections.
In recent weeks, she said, the electricity in Marcus Garvey had started tripping and Nevernever residents had been blamed.
She had been called in to mediate between the two communities, she said, and was surprised when people arrived and asked her for help with illegal connections.
The group had entered her house, she said, and “started beating me”.
“Then Dorah ran out to get my husband
. When my husband tried to protect me, they started hitting him as well.
“Then they took me to an open field where one of the guys threatened to shoot me but he didn’t because at that stage someone had already called the police and we could see them coming.”
Sautana said the police had taken them to the police station where they made a statement and laid a complaint.
While she was at the police station, her house and three others had been petrol bombed, Sautana said.
One of her neighbours, Gcinikhaya “Majola” Willem, 36, had rushed to try to extinguish the flames. It is not clear what happened to him, but his family has suggested that he was beaten to death while heading towards his neighbours’ burning homes.
Nomsa Deli said that her brother had died in hospital at midday yesterday.
Deli said she and Willem had heard the commotion on Sunday and ran to help extinguish the burning homes.
She said they had run to Sautana’s house first and then, while on their way to a second house that was on fire, they had seen a group of men coming towards them.
“Majola hid among houses and I carried on to the second house. When I came back, I saw him lying there and asked for help to take him to the main road where we could get help.
“He had a wound in his head and he was just lying there not able to speak,” Deli said.
She said her brother left his girlfriend, Noxolo Tono, and his two children, Lilitha, 4, and Ludumo, 17.
Tono described her boyfriend as caring and said that although he was unemployed, he always tried to be helpful around the neighbourhood.
Sautana, Deli and Tono have sent their children to stay with family elsewhere because they fear another attack.
Philippi East police station spokesman Nondumiso Paul said they were investigating two cases of assault, two cases of arson and a case of public violence after some people had thrown stones at the police vans on Sunday.
Paul could not confirm that four houses had been petrol bombed: “There may have been more but these were the only two that were reported to us,” she said. At the time of going to print, she was unable to confirm that a murder case had been opened in connection with Willem’s death. - Cape Argus