Man badly hurt in Joburg taxi rank attack
Two men viciously assaulted a taxi driver, fueling rreports of violence at the Noord taxi rank in Johannesburg.
|||Johannesburg - Mixed reports of violence at the Noord taxi rank left commuters concerned after a man was seriously assaulted on Thursday morning.
The police have said the incident was related to taxi violence, while witnesses said it was an attempted robbery.
Gauteng police spokesman Major Mack Mngomezulu said the victim was a taxi driver.
“There's been a problem over routes to the Mall of Africa between two taxi associations. He was badly beaten and transported to hospital after the assault.”
Mngomezulu said police were monitoring the situation closely, but no arrests had been made.
However, witnesses and commuters at the scene had a different story to tell. One witness, who identified herself only as Albertina, said she watched as two “tsotsis” tried to rob a man while on his way to work. “They came behind him and there was some sort of argument, they pushed him and tried to grab his arm.”
“He was wearing a watch and they tried to force him to take it off, he fought back and the one tsotsi who was holding a brick hit him a few times,” she said.
Albertina said the man then fell to the ground and he was hit again in the head with the brick.
“People started screaming at them, telling them to stop but they ran away,” she said.
The Star witnessed the man lying on the ground, incapacitated and surrounded by paramedics who were treating him.
They were waiting for the ambulance to arrive.
A commuter who identified herself only as Ayanda said she was afraid of going to the taxi rank but had to go there every day to get to work.
“I’m here early in the morning because I have to be at work by 7am, I have a family to support. There are a lot of robberies and it can get bad sometimes, you never know what will happen when you come here. If they want to mug us, let them, but don't attack us, take what you want and go,” Ayanda said.
One man said it was tragic that honest and innocent people had to come to Noord just to go to work, but ended up leaving in an ambulance. “It's not right and no one does anything to stop it, so it will carry on.”
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The Star