Posted from The Mail and Guardian

A regular "street-cleaning" exercise by eThekwini metro police -- with one eye on the World Cup -- is drawing outrage from hard-hit street children in Durban and the organisations working with them.

Street children who spoke to the Mail & Guardian accused the police of using violence during the round-ups, which usually see them corralled into vans and dumped in "safe houses" far from Durban's central business district.

Said 13-year-old Kheto Ngcobo: "Sometimes they kick us with their boots and they beat us with their hands. Once, when a fight broke out [between two knife-wielding adults] in the police van, I got sprayed with pepper. My eyes burned and burned."