Truck stopped at gunpoint then set alight in Dunoon

A bread truck was looted and set alight on Potsdam Road on Saturday, after a goods truck and meat truck had been torched the previous Thursday. Tyres were also burnt in Potsdam road and on the N7 after shack demolitions were carried out by the City of Cape Town’s Anti Land Invasion Unit in Dunoon.

Police said bystanders had told them that on Thursday six men, two of whom were armed with a rifle and a handgun, stopped a meat truck. The driver and two occupants were forced out at gunpoint. The men then set the truck alight, said Captain Adrian Chandler, spokesperson for the Table View police. The occupants of the truck fled.

At 7pm that night, a similar incident unfolded when Potsdam Road was blocked with rocks. “The driver of a truck was forced to stop when stones were thrown at the truck … He jumped out of the vehicle and ran away. The protesters then set the vehicle alight. The protest was due to ongoing destruction of illegal structures in the Dunoon informal settlement,” said Chandler.

Six people were arrested on Friday and charged with public violence.

The City’s mayoral committee member responsible for informal settlements, Xanthea Limberg, confirmed that on Thursday, 47 unoccupied shacks on the municipal sports ground were demolished.

A land occupation has also started behind Doornbach informal settlement near the Dieprivier. Limberg said the City had informed the land owner.

When GroundUp visited the sports ground on Friday morning, about ten women with children were sitting on broken couches. They said they were not going anywhere and would continue rebuilding their shacks. They said the sports ground was only used as a dumping site.

“We will continue with the struggle,” said one of the land occupiers.

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