By Graeme Hosken

Bloody violence erupted in Mabopane, outside Pretoria, on Monday with running street battles between township residents and the police as thousands of people took to the streets to vent their anger about poor services.

The street battles, which left 27 people, including 10 children, injured, saw stone-throwing protesters hurling petrol bombs and barricading streets with burning tyres as authorities fought back, firing teargas and rubber bullets at rioters. The protests saw hundreds of policemen flooding the area in an attempt to stem the violence.

Militant protesters, armed with an assortment of weapons, including steel pipes and catapults, took to the streets at 2am, burning tyres outside Mabopane station before barricading the train lines to Pretoria, preventing commuters from leaving for work.

Rioters, who were dispersed by the police nearly an hour later, barricaded the Marula Sun Road (M17) preventing taxis and buses from transporting stranded commuters to the city.

'What did I do to make them cross?'

The police opened fire on the protesters, injuring dozens - including schoolchildren walking to the station - when the protesters tried to stone and hurl petrol bombs at a passing train. The injured had to wait nearly three hours for ambulances to take them to hospital after they were attacked by stone-throwing rioters blocking the streets.

Terrified Boikarabelo Butjie, nine, who was shot in the side, said she did not know what she had done wrong.

"Why did the policemen shoot me? What did I do to make them cross? All I wanted to do was go to school so I could play with my friends," she said while comforting 6-year-old David Ramoka, who had been shot in the head. Philimon Kekana, Regional Chairman of the South African National Civic Organisation, said they would continue protesting until their demands for proper services were met.

"We will continue to riot until the government has heeded to our demands. They have asked us to vote for them which we have done, yet they are refusing to fulfil their side of the bargain," he said.

M17 street committee leader Prudence Mataba said they were sick and tired of the government's empty promises. "We want service delivery and we want it now," she said.

• This article was originally published on page 3 of The Mercury on January 24, 2006