1 Reported Killed in South Africa Clash

Police fired rubber bullets, tear gas and shotguns into a crowd of blacks leaving a funeral Sunday near the southern city of Port Elizabeth, witnesses said. A 28-year-old man was killed and 10 people were wounded, they said.

Police Lt. Henry Beck, at national headquarters in Pretoria, confirmed the use of weapons in the black township of Zwide but said he knew of no casualties.

Several black reporters and other witnesses said a crowd of undetermined size left the funeral, held for blacks slain in recent violence, and were walking to the township bus terminal when police in armored personnel carriers opened fire.

Crowd Throws Stones

“There were some incidents of stone-throwing by the crowd. . . . One youngster picked up a tear gas canister and threw it back at police,” said one of the reporters. He asked not to be identified because he did not have official clearance to enter the township.

The identity of the man reported killed was not known, nor was the seriousness of the reported injuries. Hospitals in the area said they did not treat any victims, but blacks wounded in riots often shun hospitals for fear of being arrested.

Four people, including a 9-year-old boy, were buried at the Zwide funeral. They were killed in clashes with police and in attacks by blacks against other blacks accused of supporting the white-minority government and its system of apartheid racial segregation.

Six miles inland, two riot victims were buried without incident Sunday outside the town of Uitenhage as hundreds of police and army troops stood by, according to police and witnesses.

Earlier Police Clash

On March 21, police shot and killed 19 blacks near Uitenhage, charging that their demonstration had turned violent. Black witnesses said police attacked without justification.

On Sunday, soldiers and police manned key intersections near the Zwide township and Uitenhage funerals, witnesses said.

Police guarded government buildings in Uitenhage and threw up a roadblock on the main highway linking the area with Port Elizabeth, residents said. The four-lane highway brushes against several impoverished black areas, where white motorists have been attacked by blacks.

The latest victim of the attacks, businessman Alec Roberts, was being treated for leg burns Sunday in a Port Elizabeth hospital after blacks ambushed his pickup truck and threw gasoline bombs at it, police said.