Police in South Africa said on Wednesday they had arrested three people following the incident. mysterious deaths Last month of 21 youth in a township nightclub.
Police said in a statement without naming those arrested that the 52-year-old owner of the bar and two employees aged 33 and 34 were detained in recent days for violating liquor sale rules.
The owner will appear in court on August 19 on charges of selling or supplying alcohol to minors, while both employees have been fined 2,000-rand ($118).
The youths, most of them teenagers, died on 26 June at Enyobeni Inn in the coastal city of Scenery Park in east London, but their cause of death is unclear.
Survivors describe a fight to escape the jam-packed site, with one reporting a suffocating smell.
Sinovuyo Monyane, 19, said she was struggling to escape through a door surrounded by people.
“We tried to move through the crowd, ‘Please let us in,’ and others were screaming ‘We’re dying, guys,’ and ‘We’re suffocating’ and ‘There are people who can’t breathe. can’,” she told AFP. ,
Oluthando Mathimkhulu/Xinhua via Getty Images
Police have yet to complete their investigation, and although officials have ruled out a stampede, the results of the autopsy have not yet been made public.
“As we said at the outset, the investigation is a process and must be treated with the utmost care and understanding so that we can achieve the desired results,” Eastern Cape provincial commissioner Nomthelle Maine said in a statement.
on one Memorial Service Last WeekPresident Cyril Ramaphosa blamed the deaths on the “crisis of drinking at an early age” and vowed to crack down on “dishonest” bar keepers who violate the rules.
“We don’t know yet who killed our children. But we do know that the law was broken that night and probably several nights ago,” Ramaphosa said.
Phil Magakoe / AFP via Getty Images
