Police Shoot Rubber Bullets As Community Members Fight For Electricity #SowetoShutdown. Police officials shot rubber bullets at Soweto demonstrators in Johannesburg in order to break them apart.
Police officials shot rubber bullets at Soweto demonstrators in Johannesburg in order to break them apart. The residents made barriers in some parts of the street in Orlando East. The residents were demonstrating against the cuts of electricity. It took the officials over an hour to break apart the community members who were heading to the City of Johannesburg offices in Orlando East.
30 minutes after speaking to law enforcement agencies, the community members then tried to head to the municipal offices. However, they blocked by the police officials. The officials halted the demonstrators at a traffic circle and thus ordered them to not go ahead to the office of Sechaba Khumalo, the ward councillor. The ward councillor was brought to the residents so that he could hear their grievances.
The community members are requesting that their electricity connection be brought back. They say that they have been without electricity since June 2019. Sakhumzi Ngomfela, the community leader, says, “We demnd our electricity back. We have been without lights for the past eight months. We are responding to a call about a shutdown. We want our councillor to explain why we don’t have power in our houses.” The community leader says that the ward councillor has not been replying to the requests since 2019.
The ward councillor, Sechaba Khumalo, says he knows about the requests of the community members. He told the community members that they should join a march on Wednesday to Eskom office in Diepkloof. The march will be guided by Soweto’s own ward councillors.
by Alexandra Ramaite
