Cable thieves are running amok, terrorising a community in Johannesburg as they search for buried electricity cables in the neighbourhood digging up trenches around homes at midnight and armed to teeth with rifles.
In the latest incident, residents of Nomzamo Park in Orlando East, Soweto, came under siege on Sunday night when heavily armed men arrived in the area in search of a stretch of cables that are buried underground by City Power to supply of electricity to the township.
One resident who asked not to be named said the armed gang arrived in the area around midnight on Sunday and began digging up the cables until 3am.
“You cannot sleep when they are digging. You cannot go outside because they are armed. This is the life that we live here…,” he said.
He said over the past two years, electricity infrastructure had been a target. He said the group of men started by cutting the street lights at a nearby park.
The thieves then went on to cut all the lights along Kingsley and Tsholofelo streets entering the RDP houses settlement.
Nomzamo Park has been without electricity for about two years after a transformer caught fire.
The man said that in January the thieves stole one of the transformers, which was hoisted on poles.
0 of 3
“The following day, they were able to remove another transformer from the poles but were unable to take it. Residents called police and Eskom came to take it. The last of the three transformers was stolen three weeks ago,” he said.
This is not the only community to have been targeted by gangs of cable thieves in recent weeks. On May 14, two security guards were killed by armed men at the Verref substation in Vereeniging, south of Johannesburg, who went there to steal cables. Their killing came just two days after four of their colleagues were assaulted with pipes and landed up in hospital.
In April last year, a group of men dug trenches outside people’s yards in Nomzamo Park.
“Normally they start at 9pm. They can work the whole night until 6am. When they see a police van, they run into our yards. The strange thing is that it is always the same number of people, about 12 of them. While some are digging, others sit across the road observing. They have guns because they have clashed with Inkunzi Security guards several times. Those are the people who are trying to help us,” said the resident.
The trenches are about 1.5m deep and the affected area stretches for about 2km.
Another resident stood outside her home looking at young men who were closing the ditch that was left open.
“These people do this all the time. I am a woman. I cannot go out and confront them. We really are living in fear.”
She said the police did not come when they were called out to the scene.
Other residents claimed the police refused to come to Nomzamo Park because they have been attacked before.
One of the security guards tasked with looking after the electricity infrastructure in the area said that three days before the attacks on April 28, he met one of thieves and he called him by name.
“I was surprised how he knew my name. The guy promised to give me something each time they come up with the cable from the trenches. I rejected it. I never got to know how much he was offering,” the guard said.
The guard said the gang fired shots at the security vehicle, hitting the front windscreen and a window on the side. Security guards said some of the bullet holes showed that the gang is using assault rifles.
On the same day, the gang hit at 11pm. This time they shot one of the security guards five times. He miraculously survived.
“I don’t want to lie to you, we are also scared of these guys,” one of the guards said.
Orlando police spokesperson Cons Monica Hangwane denied allegations that police did not want to come out to Nomzamo Park.
“There is no way that we can refuse to attend a crime scene… If people are told the police say they cannot come, they can call the station commander and report that,” Hangwane said.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the underground cables had been decommissioned and the company planned to dispose of them.
“We are having a problem with criminals who are harvesting these cables day and night. We have our armed security personnel who constantly patrol the area and several arrests have been carried out…the security personnel cannot be stationed at the areas due to the gangs [being] heavily armed, in fact we have had instances where they exchanged gunfire with some of the criminals,” Mangena said.
Last month, police arrested two men after they were found with City Power cables in Nomzamo Park.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.