Fikile Mbalula keeps afraid Marikana settlement residents waiting nearly five hours
Police minister Fikile Mbalula kept a crowd of Marikana, Philippi East residents waiting four-and-a-half hours on Tuesday before finally arriving to sympathise with them after 11 murders on Friday. Mbalula and his deputy‚ Bongani Mkongi‚ were joined in a packed hall by provincial police commissioner Lt-Gen Khombinkosi Jula‚ who said the killings in the informal settlement in Philippi — including 23 in September alone — had forced the police to examine themselves. "The past [few days have] been a moment of reflecting on the gaps [in the police]. We regard this incident that has happened as a mass killing‚" he said. "These things should not happen again. So many lives were lost." Jula expressed condolences to families who lost loved ones‚ saying, "your family members have not died in vain". Addressing claims that Friday night’s killings were committed by criminals as revenge for anticrime patrols‚ community police forum provincial board chairperson Andrew Lyon said communities should ...
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