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The body of a young boy who had just been hit by a police vehicle still lay on the street when two police vehicles and an ambulance were torched in Lichtenburg, North West.
The incident dragged community members out of their Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown. They poured out into the streets after getting the news of a child dying after he allegedly was hit by a police car.
The incident has led to questions being asked – particularly on social media – about children being allowed on the streets despite the strict regulations aimed at curbing infections.
North West police spokesperson Brigadier Sabata Mokgwabone confirmed that eight-year-old Rethabile Setlhotlha was hit by a K9 Unit vehicle while crossing the street in Boikhutso township.
The family said the young boy was sent to buy bread at a tuck shop across the street and he never came back home.
“We were sitting outside the house when we suddenly heard a loud sound which went out like something just got crushed. Then we received the news … Rethabile had just been hit by a police car,” said family spokesperson Gomolemo Boikanyo.
“We went to the scene and were still concentrating on his body when the atmosphere changed around us. Vehicles were on fire, people were running amok and all we could do was move the boy’s body a little bit ... away from the street so that we could be out of the commotion.”
Two children killed hours apart
Mokgwabone said Rethabile was the second child to be hit by a car and killed in Lichtenburg, after a young girl met the same fate in Blydeville township a few hours earlier.
“A girl whose age was not yet confirmed died on the scene after being hit by an Isuzu bakkie at about 10.20am on the Ottosdal-Lichtenburg road near Blydeville. The police are investigating two separate cases of culpable homicide,” he said.
Meanwhile, Boikanyo said the family was “devastated by Rethabile’s untimely passing”.
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“It is a big loss for the parents, who lost their first born before and now Rethabile, their second born. They are left with only the youngest. This was never expected as the tuck shop the child went to is close to his home, just across the street,” he said.
Boikanyo would not comment on the public violence that came after the incident.
“I don’t know what happened. We just saw people out there in the streets and, like I said, we managed to move his body off the street.”
Public violence condemned
North West Premier Job Mokgoro has urged the public to allow calm to return and for people to refrain from violence, to “stay home as directed and keep children off the streets in line with the lockdown regulations as pronounced by government”.
He called for the arrest of all those who were responsible for the torching of state property, adding that “vandalism, lawlessness and all other of criminality cannot be tolerated”.
Mokgoro was forced to cancel his attendance of a post-Covid-19 housing project launch event in Vryburg and was meant to visit Lichtenburg this morning.
His spokesperson, Vuyisile Ngesi, said the premier would visit the two bereaved families “to convey condolences on behalf of the North West provincial government, as well as witness first hand the damage caused by the violent protests”.
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