South Africa: Gauteng Premier Visits Families of Ratanda Protest Victims

Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi has visited the families of two men who were killed during violent service delivery protests at Ratanda in the Lesedi Local Municipality.

Last week, Ratanda community members protested in opposition to water outages in the area, where clashes occurred with police.

The home of the municipality's Executive Mayor was also torched during the protests.

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"It was a very difficult and painful process, but fulfilling that we have finally managed to meet the families. No family deserves to go through this pain. It was extremely emotional to lock eyes and interact with them. And extremely difficult to answer simple questions but heavily loaded questions: Should our children die because of water?

"So at least we are relieved that we have resolved this challenge of water. We are following it up, and we had a follow-up meeting with the Minister late last night. We have established a task team to assist us for the next six months to turn around the finances in terms of billing. It will permanently resolve the matter," Lesufi said after visiting the families.

He acknowledged the dissatisfaction expressed by the families during the visit.

"We are committed jointly with the Executive Mayor to give them support...a high level of counselling and also support towards burial activities because they requested the state to assist them. I must say, it's a difficult process.

"These are things that we [shouldn't] have to do as public representatives...our task is to render services. But we will continue to work with these families," the premier said.