Africa-Press – Eswatini. The public has called for the brutal killing of police to stop.
Stop killing the police was the common sentiment among members of the public who sympathised with the two officers who were killed in cold blood in broad daylight while on duty near Woodmasters behind Grand Valley complex at the country’s hub on Tuesday.
Constables Siyazi Dlamini and Sifiso Irvin Mthembu, who were traffic officers in Manzini, were shot at close range by two suspects while doing a routine roadside check.
The officers were shot by two suspects who alighted from a Honda Fit sedan with no registration numbers and ordered the officers, one of whom carried an R4 rifle, to lie down.
After disarming the one who had a rifle, the two men were said to have mercilessly shot the officers twice, one shot each, at close range in the head while they were begging for their lives and sped off with the rifle.
It has been claimed that there were three occupants in the vehicle.
The suspects are still at large.
Stop
The public has called on whosoever were behind the killings to stop causing unnecessary pain and suffering to families of the officers.
Some of the people who called for the killings to stop made it known that the current political dispensation was not conducive and needed to be improved.
However, they said it was uncalled for to tragically end the lives of police officers because it sent the wrong message not only to local authorities but to the public as well.
Seasoned lawyer and Manzini resident Gigi Reid-Miles vehemently denounced the killings of officers of the law for whatever reason.
The lawyer in her capacity as a concerned resident of Manzini and a law abiding citizen of the country took to her Facebook page and publicly condemned the acts of murdering police.
In an interview, Reid declared that she reserves her perspective on politics because she was not supposed to be involved in politics.
Even so, she stated that there were a number of social ills including poverty, the wriggling health and education systems and the spiralling unemployment rate, to mention a few, which may justify the anger of a number of Emaswati.
However, the lawyer opined that killing the police had nothing to do with all this.
Also, Reid stated that the officers, despite the fact that they were also affected by some issues like everyone else, did their job and followed orders.
Therefore, she said it was unfair on them to be killed for merely following orders from their superiors just like every other employee.
“It doesn’t matter what we’re going through. We can’t kill each other for things we go through every day,” she said.
Reid added that at the end of the day as a nation everyone was related and the officers were equally human.
Meanwhile, Silungile said there was no hero in death adding that those rejoicing, soon it would be them.
Nokukhanya Khumalo passed sincere condolences to the friends and relatives of police officers who have found themselves in the firing line while maintaining peace and stability in the kingdom.
“May God comfort friends and relatives of the deceased, it is painful to lose a loved one no matter the circumstances,” she said.
Some of the people also called upon all security forces in the kingdom to work day and night in unison to ensure that the suspects were brought to book soonest.
“We all need to fight against this social ill. The killing of our brothers and sisters must stop,” said Muzi.
Mangololo also said police were human beings, had families and were relatives of citizens who did not deserve to be killed.
In statement, the formation said the fact that police were not trained as military was by design not default because their mandate was different from that of soldiers.
“They are to protect the very same citizenry from all criminal activities in the country.
“They are there to maintain peace, law and order. Without police in our area, we are likely to live as survivors of the fittest. We are soon to experience high level of crime if we continue with such a habit of murdering police officers,” said Mangololo in a statement.
They went to state that they were deeply saddened by the cruelty displayed by the people who kill and destroy families and public structures claiming that they were doing that to authorities yet the ordinary person suffered the most in the process.
Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) Public Information and Communications Officer (PICO) Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said no arrests have been made yet.
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