Bloemfontein police spokesperson, Thabo Covane, says amongst those arrested for the public violence, are two women and five men. The protesting group will remain in police custody till their first court appearance before the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on 4 March 2022. The normally busy R702 road, which separates the Caleb Motshabi and the Klipfontein farmstead on either side, was barricaded with burning tyres, road infrastructure and bits of refuse strewn along the road as of 03:00 in the morning.

Covane says the protesters are unhappy with the incumbent ward councillor and demand a rerun of the election process. Covane further adds that the protesting group wants to be addressed by the Coordinator of the Interim Provincial Committee (IPC) in the Free State ANC, Paseka Nompondo, and the Premier of the province, Sisi Ntombela.

In July 2021, OFM News reported that tensions in the aforementioned informal settlements were brewing over the allocation of housing sites. Impoverished citizens who have called Caleb Motshabi (also known as “Dinaweng”) their temporary home for some time, said they are forced to watch helplessly as “strangers” allegedly score housing sites ahead of them at the Klipfontein farm across from the R702 road which merges into the M3, despite not being on the list. At the time, some of these disgruntled residents barricaded a portion of the road with rocks, demanding that they be prioritised on the list for sites.

READ MORE: Tensions brew over Bloemfontein housing issues

Mangaung Metro purchased the farm to ensure that residents who have built shacks on top of major Bloem Water pipelines that endanger their lives, can be legally assigned to safer sites. Klipfontein resident and activist, Tefo Phakiso, alleged at the time that there was some corruption at play with regards to the allocation of housing sites. The Mangaung Metro never responded to these allegations despite media queries from OFM News on the matter.

OFM News