Six suspects have been arrested for the alleged murder of seven men and a female at Mpheni village in EmaXesibeni in the Eastern Cape. Two groups of men from Mpheni and Nokhatsheli villages allegedly fought following a dispute over taxis and delivery vans on Friday morning.
It is reported one group wants the use of minibus taxis, while the other supports the use of vans known as ‘ooquqa.’
Brigadier Vish Naidoo on alleged taxi violence in Mount Ayliff:
Police have been deployed to Mpheni to restore stability.
Eastern Cape police commissioner Lt. General Liziwe Ntshinga has called on residents to work with the police in the investigation.
“After they were discharged, we arrested six of them; three are still in hospital. We are busy with them now; charging them with public violence, murder and also for domestic violence because there’s one woman who was also killed. This is a very very bad thing that I picked up in this area. People are so scared, they don’t want to talk. If you ask them, they just say ‘I don’t know anything,’ which is for me it’s not going to assist us. If the community is not working with the police we will not be able to deal with this issue.”
Police worked with SANDF members to track down the suspects.
Earlier, National Police spokesperson Brigadier Vish Naidoo said they needed the military’s resources to nab the suspects.
“We needed the resources, both manpower and the equipment that the SANDF have in their possession to assist as to cover as much area as possible of the area that we are looking at or the area that we are searching, given the fact that is it is vast.”
