ABERDEEN NEWS - Farmers in the Aberdeen district were furious on Friday when taxis from the Western Cape drove across their lands to avoid the R61 roadblock.
A bottleneck occurred yet again at the roadblock outside Aberdeen, as hundreds of taxis supposedly heading for funerals in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape streamed towards Aberdeen from Thursday evening.
By late afternoon on Friday, police and traffic department officials were turning most of the taxis around, as they were either overloaded or had incorrect permits.
Aberdeen residents were alarmed to hear shots on two occasions early Friday evening, but according to one local farmer, the police were just firing warning shots in an attempt to get order.
A senior police official explained that many taxi drivers were using farm roads to try to bypass the roadblock, either to save time, or to avoid being caught with forged papers.
“We found a taxi in our veld, riding along our dirt roads to try and get to Aberdeen without going through the roadblock,” said one local farmer.
“They had broken the lock of our neighbour's gate, to get onto our land from the Beaufort West road - it was quite a spectacle,” she added.
The SAPS did not comment in time for publication.
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