Durban - Police fired rubber bullets on Monday morning as Inchanga residents torched houses and blockaded roads, protesting against Sunday night’s killing of a local SACP leader and another fatal shooting on Monday morning.
SAPS spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Thulani Zwane, described the situation as volatile in Ward 4, Harari, to the west of Durban.
“The entire area has been closed off by the police,” he said. “This was after another person was shot dead on Monday morning following the murder of a woman on Sunday,” he said.
Nonsikelelo Blose, 40, the secretary of the SACP’s Inchanga branch was shot three times near a local tavern on Sunday night.
On Monday morning, as residents marched to blockade an entrance to the area to express their anger, a man, fired shots at the marchers.
The shooter, identified as Xolani Mabaso, was shot dead in an exchange of fire.
“No traffic is allowed to access or exit the area. The police are at the scene,” said Zwane.
Residents were blocking the roads with burning tyres and stones, protesting against Sunday’s killing.
The Daily News learnt on Monday morning from police that five houses had been torched, but details were sketchy at the time of publication.
The SACP demanded the authorities apprehend those responsible for Blose’s death.
The party’s KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary, Themba Mthembu, said they wanted the killers brought to book.
“It is regrettable that more killings are happening in Inchanga as we have agreed with the ANC that we must go to the area to arrest the hostilities,” Mthembu said.
The ANC eThekwini region on Monday called off its press conference ahead of tomorrow’s inaugural sitting of the new Durban metro council as it turned its attention to calming tensions in Inchanga.
However, restoring peace was proving difficult.
ANC eThekwini spokeswoman, Zinhle Cele, said: “It’s so volatile there that we can’t even go.”
“We have sent an entourage but due to the volatility of the situation we cannot get in. Roads are closed and houses are torched,” she said.
Inchanga ward councillor, Malombo Nxumalo, who is a cousin of former eThekwini mayor James Nxumalo, said Blose was shot near Mnike Tavern. Nxumalo said she was taken to Pietermaritzburg’s Grey’s Hospital, but died en route.
Mthembu said they would demand the task team look into election-related violence and investigate the matter.
He said Blose had been a witness to the January shootings in the area.
The Daily News reported at the time that two people were killed at an SACP monthly community meeting in Inchanga.
The shootings came in the wake of tensions between then mayor elect and eThekwini ANC chairwoman, Zandile Gumede, and former mayor and SACP provincial chairman, Nxumalo.
At the funeral of the men, ANC provincial leaders were jeered.
Mthembu said other witnesses to the incident would be afraid to testify.
“We are asking for protection arrangements for other witnesses,” he said.
The party planned to go to the Blose family to express their condolences on Monday, Mthembu said.
He said Blose was killed during Women’s Month, a time when women were supposed to be honoured.
Zwane said the 40-year-old woman was shot in Inchanga’s Fredville area at about 6pm.
He said the motive for the shooting was not known and the Inchanga police were investigating a case of murder.
According to one of the marchers, Blose was “silenced” because she was about to testify as a witness in a case in which another SACP member, Phillip Dlamini was killed in January.
“Dlamini was shot dead in broad daylight during an SACP meeting at the Ndokweni grounds here. It’s women’s month yet we have men who have no qualms in killing women. It’s time that the ANC leadership resolved the existing differences before we see some retaliation,” said the resident.
Daily News