Naledi meeting ends on a sour note following the death of children

Brewing tensions and divisions among Naledi residents led to the collapse of a community meeting at Naledi Hall on Tuesday night.

This after angry residents attacked Ward 20 Cllr and took to the streets demanding foreign owned shops in the vicinity be permanently closed.

Residents claim that the Cllr was among those who were in cahoots with foreigners and police officials, in protecting foreign nationals get away with criminality.

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Tensions in the area follow the tragic deaths of six year-old Leon Jele and four year-old Neo Kgang on Sunday.

The pair is among two other children who allegedly fell sick after consuming snacks from a foreign owned shop in the area.

The meeting on Tuesday was to address residents since the community signed a petition demanding closure of all foreign owned shops.

The petition demands that shops halt operations while the community await the post-mortem results confirming the cause of death of the two children.

Some members blamed Operation Dudula for hijacking the meeting and pushing its own agenda at the expense of a tragic incident.

Thobile Maoba, a resident and community leader was among those who slammed the vigilante group for the events that unfolded.

“The purpose of the meeting was to put everyone at ease, especially to emphasise on wanting the post-mortem before we can act as we had agreed with the petition.

“Unfortunately what we were trying to prevent actually happened. Instead, as we expected, these people came into our ward, took over our meeting. We never had the opportunity to give our people a full detailed update.”

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Tebogo Magafane, Secretary General of COSAS said, “It is important to remember what has brought us here, we are not here to campaign. People must not come here and want to score points for politics or elections.

“I am disappointed with our leaders because they have turned this into their political game. As a community, we need to be united because for a long time we have been crying about these issues.”

The ward Cllr was escorted out of the hall by SAPS, while Operation Dudula members and some residents went back into the hall and shortly returned marching on the streets.

They said they wanted to make sure that all foreign owned shops in the vicinity were closed.

“What has happened is hard and what is even more concerning is that these foreign nationals are being protected by our police. Things can’t be normal, these stores need to be closed because some of them are still operating and we are saying they must close down. We have been quiet for too long,” said a resident, Mbali Tlhapane.

Thabo Ngayo, National Coordinator for Operation Dudula rubbished these claims citing that they were only there on the request of residents.

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He said they were clear on their stance for the law to be implemented, citing that all foreign owned shops without proper documentation should be permanently closed.

“Our problem is that all the legalities with these foreign owned shops are not applied. It’s clear they are coming into our country because the laws are not stringent, the border is borderless.

“We are saying all of those things must come to an end and let the laws of our country not be contravened.

“That is the position we took when engaging with these landlords and they told us that they had been trying to remove these people but failed.”

 

The police have confirmed that an inquest docket has been opened at the Naledi SAPS.