Caught in the middle of rubber bullets, stun grenades and tear gas

As The Citizen photographic editor, I was alerted early yesterday morning to protests in Krugersdorp that were spilling over from the weekend where a number of municipal buildings and alleged drug dens were set on fire, in an apparent attempt to cleanse the city of Nigerians.

The residents claim the Nigerians are responsible for crime, drug and human trafficking in the area.

Driving through to the area, I arrived just outside the Krugersdorp CBD at the corner of Robert Broom Drive and Van Riebeeck Road where approximately 1 000 people were singing and dancing and blocking the intersection.

The police had allegedly intercepted the crowd as they made their way to the CBD.

This was a significant number of people. Most service delivery protests will feature half this amount, or less. The crowd grew throughout the morning, as did their rage.

Eventually police opened fire with rubber bullets, and deployed a number of stun grenades, along with tear gas. This resulted in clashes lasting about two hours with the residents.

I have been working as a press photographer for over 10 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this before.

The protesters were relentless as rocks, bricks, bottles and petrol bombs rained down on the officers as they tried to reclaim the intersection. Throughout those two hours, the police delivered a constant barrage of rubber bullets and tear gas.

The residents were prepared as they doused the smoking canisters using buckets of water. Some even picked them up and thew them back at the cops. Thousands of rounds of rubber bullets must have been fired.

This is a very angry community. Hopefully it will not result in the types of xenophobic attack flare-ups that South Africa has been witness to in recent times.

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