Some community members in Thembisa demand closure of spaza shops

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Individual that you're seeing in front of our screens here is one of the people who has been leading uh putting Okay. No, um Mfundu, as you can hear, um this is one of the individuals who says who has actually been at the forefront of this march and who has been calling on community members to join in on this community protest um that has been organized uh but seemingly without any individual claiming to have been the organizer behind this march. And this was the reason we saw organizations such as the Thembisa Community Forum um concern raising concerns about the safety and the potential of this protest uh turning violent. And what we have seen so far, you would have seen some of the visuals. We went to a market just up the road from here where we saw uh stalls being ripped apart and those who are manning those stalls were told to pack up and go. Some individuals were running. You would have seen those shaky visuals uh when you were on the Masakhane Commission. Um that was when the marchers were rather the the individuals who had been chased away from their stalls were running away and running uh for for safety and taking their stock for fear of their stock being uh looted and stolen. And what the individual who was leading the march said when the police approached them was that they have no intention of of of of um of looting. All they want is to make sure that they are able to participate in uh the informal market without any competition. And they are that that is the reason why they're doing this. I'm just going to step out of the shot uh so that we can see the marchers. Oh, they've disappeared. Uh we we will be joining you later on and giving you all the latest information as and when it happens.