Jukskei Park family has had enough of church rituals at the river
Andre de Bruyn is having a hard time with unbearable noise coming from the Juskei River caused by congregants from an unknown church as they perform rituals.
Every Sunday Andre de Bruyn is forced to wake up in the wee hours of the morning. This, according to him, is because of congregants who come and perform rituals at the Jukskei River just 90m away from his house in Jukskei Park.
He said this past Sunday, September 10, was no different, he woke up to the same routine, “They come travelling in four to six taxis at around 04:00. This Sunday, there were over 60 people at the river.”
Upon arrival, he said the alleged congregants from the church he says he doesn’t know, start beating drums while singing but what mostly gets on his nerves is when they start screaming loudly.
“Apparently they get into the river for rituals and blessings. I do not have an issue with that but why that early in the morning? What about the noise? What about the mess they always leave behind because there is no toilet system at least? There are no changing facilities so they just come there and do their thing and change from their wet clothes to dry ones in the open, that is not nice at all.”
When asked if he had laid a complaint to the authorities, Bruyn said he informed the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department but nothing concrete came out – he just continues to suffer.
“JMPD just comes and instructs them to go which does not solve anything because they always come back. Why are they not arrested because they are contravening the by-laws?”
He said the mess that the alleged congregants leave all over the place after their services are dead chickens, feathers, burnt candles and human waste. They also make fire at the river, he shared.
He added: “The water in the river is contaminated and polluted. There are signs up there which clearly state ‘doing this is illegal and so on’ but they are not even respected. The JMPD came there but they could not arrest them because there is no law that
Bruyn has had it enough, “It is not pleasant to be awakened up because people are beating drums and screaming in the early hours of Sunday morning. We heard last year that 14 people died from drowning in the same river but somewhere else because of such instances. It is not safe and is unbearable for the residents.”
He said this predicament has also opened a can of worms for the residents, “I was approached by some guy who said we are supposed to pay him now for keeping the place clean and secure. How? I am already paying rates and taxes so why am I now supposed to go and pay some guy and his group to keep the area secure and clean?”
Bruryn now calls for more awareness as his last resort. He said residents should know what is going on so that they do not get affected when they decide to sell their houses for instance because no one would buy due to the level of noise and polluted river.
“We all know that having church services in public parks is against the law, going into rivers is against the law. We want long-term solutions other than JMPD just telling them to go away.
Fourways Review reached out to the metro police media liaison, Xolani Fihla for comment, and he said, “I’ll check with our officers if they’ve ever attended to such incidents.” No further comment was received.
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