Numerous gunshots fired outside Kliptown Secondary School in Eldorado Park has left pupils and teachers traumatised while police continue to keep a close eye on the situation.
Police said no injuries had been reported and they were investigating the motive behind the shooting.
The shooting took place on Tuesday around midday.
Spokesperson for the Eldorado Park police station, Sergeant Roxanne Gibb said police were called to the scene shortly after numerous shots were fired outside the school.
At that time, pupils were standing outside the school premises.
“The principal called the police and when they arrived, the armed suspects had fled. Fortunately no one sustained injuries,” Gibb said.
“We will continue to keep a close eye on the matter,“ she added.
A police report was also sent to the national South African Police Service office regarding the matter.
The community of Eldorado Park has long been under siege by crime, drugs, shootings and gang-related murders.
In a recent community meeting, attended by the national office of the SAPS, community members said that the high level of crime had detrimentally affected their children and schools in the area.
Last month, the Gunsdown movement handed over a 12-point memorandum of demands to the Gauteng Provincial Commissioner Lieutenant General Elias Mawela at Eldorado Park SAPS.
Some of the demands on the memorandum included an immediate 72-hour activation operation in tracing the illegal guns within the community and an intensified six-month intelligence driven operation that will deal with getting guns off the streets and closing drug dens.
Eldorado Park councillor Juwairiya Kaldine said gun violence had become an “all-too-often frightening phenomenon” within the community of Eldorado Park. Daily drug and turf related shoot-outs seems to have become the norm in hard-hit areas such as extension 2 and 4.
“Community members are living in fear and many of the elderly are traumatised as a result of these acts. Our learners’ right to education is compromised daily as these occurrences seems to happen when schools dismiss.
“Residents are targets even when home as stray bullets find their way in through windows and doors. Known drug dens that have been reported years ago still seems to be operating and is linked to turf war,” Kaldine said.
kamogelo.moichela@inl.co.za
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