mob – praag.org

Mob burns Covid-19 facility and community hall in Cape Town

Protesters torched the Desmond Tutu Community Hall and a new facility for Covid-19 patients in Makhaza, Khayelitsha, on Saturday.
The new facility opened a week ago and damage is estimated to be close to R1 million.
The exact reason for the protests is yet to be determined but it is suspected to be a group occupying vacant land nearby.

The City of Cape Town’s newly built facility meant for Covid-19 patients in Makhaza, Khayelitsha was torched allegedly by people protesting over land on Saturday.

The estimated cost of the damage caused by the fire is about R1 million, according to Mayor Dan Plato. The clinic facility had only been open for a week.

In a statement released on Monday, Plato said the facility was meant to serve vulnerable Covid-19 positive patients with treatment, testing and isolation.

“I am truly appalled by this criminal behaviour. The City will do everything we can to ensure that those responsible are brought to book. I am calling on the South African Police Service to arrest those responsible so that they face the full might of the law,” he said.

“Their callous actions have the potential to put entire communities at risk,” he said.

In another incident, protesters also torched and looted the Desmond Tutu Community Hall while protesting on Saturday morning. It is still unclear whether it was the same group who burnt the health facility, but sources we spoke to believe the group are among those occupying land near the Noxolo Xauka Primary school in Makhaza where Law Enforcement officials were demolishing structures earlier in the week.

Nosipho Qaku, a security guard at the hall, said Law Enforcement officials fired rubber bullets at the protesters to disperse them. “The protesters retreated and regrouped before returning to loot the hall. My cellphone was also stolen,” she said.

Ward councillor Danile Khatshwa said: “Because of Covid-19, I and other leaders hold Skype meetings. I will not be able to participate in such meetings because I get the internet at the hall. Residents also won’t be able to report damaged storm water drains and other problems at the hall.”

Khatshwa’s house was stoned by protesters at about 8pm on Saturday. His family has since been moved from their community for their safety.

“Thugs are now involved in the protests. They steal and damage property. My family was shocked and scared because I was not even around when the protesters tried to attack them,” said Khatshwa.

Police are yet to respond to questions on whether any arrests have been made since Saturday.

Correction: This article previously stated that the councillor’s house was burnt. His house was only stoned by protesters.

Originally published by GroundUp.

Thief dies in hail of stones

The mood turned violent as someone cast the first stone. A barrage followed and the suspected thief died in the hail.

These scenes, the latest incident of mob justice, unfolded in Protea South in Soweto on Wednesday when irate residents assaulted four men they accused of stealing from them, among other crimes.

An enraged mob of more than 100 people, mostly women, took matters into their own hands when they assaulted the man they suspected of stealing a grass cutter from one of the houses in Protea South. A woman was reportedly hanging out her washing around 6am when the suspect allegedly entered her yard and snatched a grass cutter.

Residents were alerted to the crime when she screamed.

They forced the man to take them to the accomplices with whom he normally works.

The incensed residents then dragged four of the men across the township to their community police forum (CPF), which then alerted the police.

When police arrived, the mob turned on them too – stoning them and their vehicles.

Bloodstains on the floor of the CPF’s tin shack office were mopped up only hours after one of the suspects died.

When forensic pathology services picked up his body, residents ululated, cheered and shouted “That’s what we do to criminals”.

Police spokesman Captain Mpande Khoza said no arrests had been made.

The three surviving suspects, believed to be in their 20s, were taken to hospital.

Black mob attacks, strips white family home bare on West Rand

by Riaan van Zyl

Residents’ greatest fear came true on the evening of 18 January when rioters turned on private property.

One such resident in South Road, René Scheepers (40) and her three children were getting ready for bed at approximately 10pm when rocks started flying through the windows of the house. She immediately contacted the Witpoortjie Neighbourhood Watch who in turn contacted a nyala (police armoured vehicle) patrolling the area.

The rock-pelting attack was so intense that the nyala could not access Scheepers’ property. In the meanwhile she and her children locked themselves in a room.

Only at approximately 3am on Sunday 19 January the nyala got access to the house and evacuated the family. As soon as they left the protesters went on the rampage in the house stripping it of everything moveable such as jewellery, furniture, electric appliances, expensive crockery and even the children’s schoolbags. Scheepers’ family came the next morning to save what was left.

Scheepers has indicated that out of fear she will not move back to the house. She currently is residing with family.

A lot of questions has been raised about the SAPS and JMPD’s lack of pro-active policing in the ongoing protests. – Roodepoort Record

Mob feeds rival to pigs while alive

Mafia mobsters allegedly beat a rival gangster with metal bars and then fed him to pigs while he was still alive, it has emerged from an investigation by the Italian police, reported the Telegraph.

Francesco Raccosta was allegedly fed to the pigs, which are prized for their ability to dispose of most of a human body, as part of a bloody turf war between two clans belonging to the ‘Ndrangheta mafia of Calabria, in the far south of Italy.

Simone Pepe, 24, a rival gangster, was arrested this week for the crime.

He described the killing in chilling terms to a friend in a telephone conversation that was intercepted by police.

“It was satisfying to hear him scream…Mamma mia, how he squealed, but I couldn’t give a s—. Someone said a few bits of him remained at the end of it all, but I couldn’t see anything, for me nothing remained at all. I said, wow, how a pig can eat!”

Pepe is suspected of having carried out at least three other murders.