Major South African bus operator suffers serious overnight attack

The Public Utility Transport Corporation (Putco) has confirmed that over 50 of its buses were torched by unknown assailants across at least three depots in Mpumalanga last night, 27 January 2025.

Two Putco employees were also attacked during the ordeal, with one currently in critical condition in the hospital.

According to the South African Police Service, approximately 15 suspects wearing black clothes and balaclavas stormed into a bus depot at Moloto in the KwaMhlanga area and held employees at gunpoint.

The suspects are said to have then shot as well as injured one security guard and set alight 16 buses.

Meanwhile, at Maphotla in the Siyabuswa region, about 10 suspects attacked and assaulted a security guard and proceeded to torch 18 buses.

At Thabana in Siyabuswa, about 10 suspects went to the bus depot and set fire to a further 17 buses.

Putco appealed for patience from its patrons as it considers ways to “avoid a prolonged inconvenience to commuters.”

Police are investigating various charges, including malicious damage to properties, attempted murder, and assault with intent to cause your grievous bodily harm.

Mounting suspicions

Putco suspects that the overnight attacks were carried out by taxi operators due to the mounting tensions between the company and the taxi industry.

“We don’t want to be speculating at this time as to exactly what the motive is here, but one of the things that has been prevalent in that area is that we have been facing a lot of challenges when it comes to taxi operators,” Putco spokesperson Lindokuhle Xulu told eNCA.

“They, in fact, were stopping our buses every now and then, with some associations saying that they don’t want us to operate at certain periods.”

Xulu said that Putco and the taxi associations held constructive engagements in the past and that the bus operator was under the impression that they had reached an amicable agreement.

“That’s the latest as far as tensions we’ve been feeling on the ground,” he said.

“We can’t say for sure who it is, we’ll allow police to uncover that, but certainly there has been mounting tensions in that regard.”

Xulu pointed out that the painstaking coordination and scale of the attack suggests that it was well planned and orchestrated by a singular party, and that whoever carried it out “knew exactly what they wanted to do.”

For now, the company is continuing to render its services with a heightened security detail brought in to protect its assets.

Fortunately, no further incidents have thus far occurred on any of the buses that went out this morning, said Xulu.