3 Children Hurt in South Africa Raid by Police

Security forces firing rifles and shotguns stormed a church center near Johannesburg today, wounding three children who were hiding from anti-apartheid violence, center officials said. Police arrested 55 people after the raid.

Police in Pretoria said shots were fired “in order to effect arrests” but they would not confirm a report from an official at the Wilgespruit Ecumenical Center that three children were wounded in the raid.

Authorities said 13 people were arrested on specific charges and 42 others taken into custody under special powers granted to police under the state of emergency imposed July 21.

The raid on the Wilgespruit center began about 7 a.m. when three police helicopters swooped down on the rural facility outside Johannesburg. Police in land vehicles arrived seconds later, firing rifles and shotguns, center officials reported.

Many Tried to Flee

“Children who were staying here to escape the violence in their home townships were wakened by the helicopters, and many of them panicked and tried to run away,” said Griffiths Zamala, a director of the center.

“Police shot at them and rounded them all up. Many of them were naked or half-naked as they were pushed into police trucks,” he said.

Meanwhile today, an opposition member of Parliament resigned over the white-led government’s policy of apartheid, saying he will return to the legislature when it represents “all the people of South Africa.”

The resignation of Alex Boraine was the second in less than a week. Frederick van Zyle Slabbert, leader of the white opposition Progress Federal Party, resigned his seat in Parliament and stepped down as the party’s leader last Friday.