Local television showed police officers trying to calm down a crowd of parents and onlookers gathered outside the club in the city, which is located on the Indian Ocean coast, around 620 miles south of Johannesburg. Parents and officials said they understood many of the dead were students celebrating 'pens down' parties held after the end of high school exams. Local newspaper DispatchLive reported on its website: 'Bodies are lying strewn across tables, chairs and on the floor, with no obvious signs of injury.' 'Forensic (investigators) will take samples and test to see if there was any poisoning of any sort,' he said, adding the bar was overcrowded. Ruling out a stampede as the cause of death, Binqose told AFP: 'There are no visible open wounds.' The influx of people from rural areas means that townships are actually growing rather than shrinking, as ever more precarious shacks and lean-tos are jammed in between existing houses and roads.'You can't just trade in the middle of society like this and think that young people are not going to experiment,' he said outside the tavern, in a residential area called Scenery Park.Įmpty bottles of alcohol, wigs and even a pastel purple 'Happy Birthday' sash were found strewn on the dusty street outside the double-story Enyobeni Tavern, according to Unathi Binqose, a safety government official who arrived at the scene at dawn. A quarter (24.35 or about 11.6 million) of South Africas population of. The history of these settlements is such that they were never constructed sustainably, the small houses had two rooms which were expected to house eight people, residents do not own the land where their houses were built, some of the buildings are now deemed illegal and basic services such as sewerage, electricity and water are still lacking. Mamelodi has a Population of 334 577, this was in the 2011 Census.

Following the Population Registration Act of 1950, “blacks, coloureds and Indians” were allocated different settlements.Ĭonsequently, most towns and cities still have at least one township, often with thousands of people living there. Mamelodi Mamelodi,Statue of Solomon Mahlangu Image source 'Mamelodi' was the name given to President Paul Kruger by the Africans because of his ability to whistle and imitate birds, also meaning Mother of Melodies. These became known as townships or ‘locations’ (coming from the Afrikaans word ‘lokasies’) and which were, in themselves, segregated. Langa, for example was founded in 1927, and named after Langalibalele – a Bantu chief who was incarcerated on Robben Island in 1873 for activism against the the Natal government.ĭuring the apartheid years non white people were evicted from their homes and displaced to suburban areas without basic amenities or infrastructure.

They have history and heritage, family legacies and loving communities. Townships are not places to go sightseeing or people watching.

Define Township in South Africa