Dozens injured in riots in South Africa

CAPE TOWN - Dozens of people were injured and 62 arrested in clashes Tuesday been thousands of Cape Town residents and police who demolished shacks on the slopes of the city’s Sentinel mountain.

The riots broke out in the early morning when the city’s land invasion unit arrived to dismantle new shacks erected near a firebreak on the mountain.

The Sentinel is part of the Table Mountain National Park, which is itself part of the Cape Floristic Region, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

After residents chased away the eviction teams, police arrived on the scene.

But the police were also overrun at one point by thousands of residents of the Hangberg community, who rained sticks, stones and petrol bombs down on them in anger over what they called the city’s heavy-handed approach.

The city authorities accuses residents of putting the safety of surrounding communities in danger by erecting shacks near a firebreak in an area that is prone to wildfires.

Police said 18 people, including 15 police, were injured in the clashes, in which police fired on the protesters with rubber bullets.

Witnesses put the total number of injured at closer to 40.

One policeman was shot and a journalist shot in the leg with a rubber bullet.

Twenty-nine unoccupied shacks were demolished.

A shortage of public housing causes frequent riots in South Africa, where millions of people still live in tin-and-wood shacks.