A police officer talks to a protester holding a placard reading ‘They are your children too’ during a demonstration in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg, yesterday after five people were arrested for the rape and murder of two toddlers in a shantytown.

AFP/Reuters

Diepsloot, South Africa

South African police fired rubber bullets yesterday to disperse thousands of people who rioted after five people were arrested for the rape and murder of two toddlers in a shantytown, a spokesman said.

Protesters “blocked the road and threw stones at the police”, said Lungelo Dlamini.

“Police fired rubber bullets and then the crowd dispersed,” he added.

The protesters burned tyres outside a township police station yesterday and demanded the handover for vigilante justice of a fifth suspect arrested for the rape and murder of two toddlers.

Anger flared for a second time this week in Diepsloot township northwest of Johannesburg following riots on Tuesday when a resident discovered the bodies of the girls, aged two and three, in a communal toilet, three days after they were reported missing.

The girls, who were cousins, were raped and strangled.

“The fifth (suspect) was arrested this morning,” Dlamini told AFP yesterday. “Charges against them will be kidnapping, rape, and murder.”

A man described by local media as the prime suspect was arrested overnight in another Johannesburg township after police issued an identikit picture and offered a 100,000 rand ($10,200) reward.

The suspects, all men aged between 29 and 47, lived in Diepsloot.

“He was arrested in Alexandra in the early hours of this morning. He is part of the group suspected of the killings,” Dlamini said.

Four other suspects arrested earlier this week appeared in court in Pretoria yesterday, but the hearing was postponed to next Thursday.

Following the latest arrest residents hurled rocks at passing cars and shouted, according to an AFP photographer.

Some carried placards with a police sketch of one of the suspects, others with the wording “Save our children”.

Located along one of the country’s wealthiest gated estates, Diepsloot testifies to the country’s huge wealth inequality.

Large parts of the densely-populated slum have no running water and residents share pit latrines and mobile toilets.

South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world. Around 16,000 people are killed a year, according to official statistics.

Over half the 54,000 crimes against children reported in the period from 2010 to 2011 were sexual offences, according to the UN children’s organisation Unicef.

Most murders occur in densely populated and poverty-stricken areas with poor policing.

In a separate case, a mother was due in court yesterday after her two young children were found dead in a field east of Johannesburg.