Taxi strike in Cape Town extended following days of violence

South Africa’s national taxi association has extended an eight-day strike in the Western Cape province that has claimed five lives, as it pursues legal action against local authorities to have its members’ impounded vehicles returned.

Police say 120 people have been arrested and five killed in violence, including a policeman and a British doctor who was on holidays. The doctor was shot dead during unrest in the Ntlangano Crescent area of Cape Town last Thursday after taking a wrong turn while driving from a nearby airport, the authorities have confirmed.

Although the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) re-engaged on Thursday with officials about ending its strike, it says its members will not return to work until a court has ruled on its application.

Escalating violence associated with the strike prompted city officials to call off talks with Santaco earlier this week.

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However, the past two days have been relatively quiet around the strike action. Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said officials had tabled “a reasonable proposal” when the parties met on Thursday.

“We sincerely hope that Santaco will now be mature, accept a reasonable proposal and end this strike in the interest to getting back to some normalcy in the city and province,” Mr Hill-Lewis said.

Minibus taxi drivers and owners say their vehicles are being impounded for minor offences such as not wearing a seat belt and driving in the emergency lane, while other motorists are issued with fines for the same offences. Taxi associations say traffic police in Cape Town and across the province have impounded thousands of taxis since the authorities started to implement updated traffic bylaws at the beginning of this year.

Santaco also wants the courts to order the municipal authorities to stop targeting their members until the issues between them have been resolved. However, officials say they are applying the law equally and that the taxi industry – which is notoriously lawless and violent in South Africa – does not want to be treated the same as everyone else.

Since the taxi operators halted their operations, hundreds of thousands of commuters have been left stranded and unable to get to work, and more than a dozen commuter buses that were filling the transport gap have been torched.

Numerous motorists have also been stoned and injured when driving near protest sites across the province. Santaco has denied its members are responsible for the violence, saying opportunists and criminals in the affected impoverished communities are to blame.

The Western Cape Education Department said 728,247 pupils were forced to stay home from school on Thursday while 48 schools were closed. Supermarkets are also beginning to experience food shortages, as people working in food supply chains are unable to get to work.