The National Investigative Hearings by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) continues in Umhlanga, north of Durban.
Phoenix resident, Sham Maharaj, is continuing to share his experience of the violence and killings that took place in the area.
Over 350 people died during the civil unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Maharaj is also the convenor of a Peace and Development Committee forum.
In the video below, SAHRC hearing into July unrest:
He was questioned him on whether the number of people who were killed in Phoenix during the unrest – over thirty – could be defined as a massacre.
“I think those were killings, which is not acceptable. We have acknowledged it and condemned it and given information to the police so that those people can be arrested. The massacre thing got coined by the media and certain opportunistic politicians. Well, I think there is an acceptance on part of whoever might be that it (was) a massacre. So be it. I can’t change your mind.”
Pressed on it, Maharaj insisted, “My view is that people have been killed.”
On Monday, the first witness at the National Hearings into the July unrest, Zama Nguse, from one of the informal settlements in Pietermaritzburg told the hearing how her nephew Sbahle Nguse was killed during the unrest.
Nguse recalled events on how businesspeople in Durban allegedly set their shacks alight and shot other people accusing them of looting and burning their businesses.
She said while they were running to the house, they heard gunshots only to be told later that her nephew had been shot.
The hearing led by the Human Rights Commission is probing the unrest in July in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng which claimed over 350 lives.
