Police do their part for the displaced

Midrand Police Station and a local church, which preferred not to be mentioned, reached out to the displaced people in the Central Business District of Midrand on 22 June and gave them each a warm blanket and hot soup.

At around 11am, Midrand police and the church, who said they were not donating for publicity, together with community members took to Grand Central Boulevard and Diagonal Street. A cup of hot soup and bread was served and thereafter they gave them warm blankets.

The leader of the church said that if they said they were children of God it was important that they demonstrate that which Christ did.

“Christ did not come for people that are already saved, He came to heal those that were wounded, save those that were lost and feed the hungry. As a church it is our responsibility, in fact, all churches should feed the hungry, heal the wounded, clothe those that don’t have clothes and parent those that are orphans.

“We should not only practise church by attending services, being holy and heading back to our cushy homes. Rather we should demonstrate by showing exactly how Christ did it for us. Donations do not have to be big, you start small, we drive around the road and see a lot of people sleeping on the side of the road when it is this cold.

“One blanket means a lot to someone, you could save that soul in need, it is just looking out, being observant and working with the community and the police to avoid crimes.”

Constable Eliot Mabulane of the Midrand police said that they thought it would be a great idea to reach out to the community and work together with them to distribute blankets as part of their campaign to combat the killings of displaced people.

“Since it’s winter, we find a lot of dead bodies with unexplained murder motives as seen in media reports of the Pretoria killings, but also due to the cold weather. So we are creating awareness with this campaign to combat the killing of the homeless. The homeless do not have blankets or even a jersey.

“It is still under investigation as some are allegedly found to have been killing others just to sleep in a warm place. So we thought distributing the blankets would maybe lessen the crimes.”

Related article:

https://www.citizen.co.za/midrand-reporter/video_of_the_day/joburgtoday-jmpd-crime-stats/