Mpumalanga MEC for community safety, security & liaison Gabisile Shabalala has called for the people of Jeppes Reef near the Matsamo border with Swaziland to respect the lockdown regulations of staying home after residents on Sunday gathered to kill and skin a baboon which was found wondering on the streets.

Sowetan was called by community members who said that they were busy preparing to eat a baboon which they had killed as a community.

When pictures of the slaughter emerged on social media, it prompted Shabalala to warn the community that they were breaking the lockdown regulations as well as the law.

“This now wrong; as the department we condemn the behaviour of some communities [together] with the one in Nkomazi [municipality] where people decided to kill an animal in large numbers," Shabalala said.