Klerksdorp, 15 March, 2021 / 5:30 pm (ACI Africa).
Members of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) have expressed their shock following the police killing of a bystander amid students’ protests at a local university mid last week.
35-year-old Mthokozisi Ntumba was reportedly struck by a stray bullet on March 10 as he was leaving a clinic amid protests over fees by students of South Africa’s Wits University, within the Archdiocese of Johannesburg.
In a statement issued Monday, March 15, the leadership of the Justice and Peace Commission (JPC) of SACBC says the members of the three-nation Conference are “deeply shocked by the tragic event and loss of life” that occurred on March 10.
“Until the government finds the political will to enforce profound changes in the ethos of policing in our country, more such deaths are inevitable,” SACBC members say in the statement signed by the Chairperson of JPC, Bishop Victor Phalana.
According to the Catholic Bishops in Botswana, South Africa, and Swaziland who constitute SACBC, “Mthokozisi Ntumba joins a long list of people, by far the majority black men, killed or murdered by the SAPS (South African Police Service). From Andries Tatane ten years ago in Ficksburg and the 34 dead at Marikana in 2012 to the shooting of Petrus Miggels in Uitsig, Cape Town at the beginning of lockdown last year.”
