After being evicted four times from private land, about 100 Mfuleni residents have now found respite in a tent on a piece of vacant land in Bardale.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
News | 7 August 2014
On 6 August, shackdweller movement Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) marched on the the Austrian honourary consul in Durban to protest the eviction of squatting âcomradesâ under way in Vienna. This, in reciprocation of months of solidarity and support from people and organisations based in Europe and the United States for AbM.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 6 August 2014
In June, the homes of hundreds of Nomzamo informal settlement residents, who were living on SANRAL-owned land, were demolished. The evictions resulted in violent clashes between residents and police. Lulama Ndevu, 33, her partner Soyiso Jackman, and their children, including their three-week-old son Nkosana, are the first family to move into the newly built corrugated iron homes in Nomzamo. The couple, who have two older children aged three and eighteen months, moved into their new 8 metre by 6 metre home in July. Ndevu nearly gave birth inside the community hall where hundreds of destitute residents are still being housed. Ndevu says she was nine-months pregnant at the time when she was kicked and assaulted by police during the violent clash. As a result, she couldn't walk until she gave birth on 7 July.
Masixole Feni and Barbara Maregele
News | 6 August 2014
In temperatures near freezing, the Joostenberg family were left with little option but to spend the night amongst their possessions on the side of the road. For a second time, they were evicted from their home by a sheriff of the court, their possessions carried out and transported off the farm where the family has lived for 50 years, and dumped next to the R318 outside Montagu.
Daneel Knoetze
News | 6 August 2014
In June, the homes of hundreds of Nomzamo informal settlement residents, who were living on SANRAL-owned land, were demolished. The evictions resulted in violent clashes between residents and police. Lulama Ndevu, 33, her partner Soyiso Jackman, and their children, including their three-week-old son Nkosana, are the first family to move into the newly built corrugated iron homes in Nomzamo. The couple, who have two older children aged three and eighteen months, moved into their new 8 metre by 6 metre home in July. Ndevu nearly gave birth inside the community hall where hundreds of destitute residents are still being housed. Ndevu says she was nine-months pregnant at the time when she was kicked and assaulted by police during the violent clash. As a result, she couldn't walk until she gave birth on 7 July.
Masixole Feni and Barbara Maregele
News | 6 August 2014
Rubble dumping on the fringe of Siqalo informal settlement has forced hundreds of shackdwellers to evacuate their homes. Those on the fringe of the settlement have experienced large boulders hitting their shacks. The mound from the dumping, which has shot up since the beginning of the year, has prevented winter rains from draining - leaving dozens of households flooded and abandoned. Yet, the owner of the plot adjacent to Siqalo who allows the dumping to go ahead unchecked, claims that the mound is a necessary safety barrier between his land and the settlement.
Masixole Feni
News | 5 August 2014
Rubble dumping on the fringe of Siqalo informal settlement has forced hundreds of shackdwellers to evacuate their homes. Boulders have rolled into shacks; dumping has prevented winter rains from draining, leaving dozens of households flooded and abandoned. Yet the dumping carries on unchecked.
Daneel Knoetze
Feature | 5 August 2014
Rubble dumping on the fringe of Siqalo informal settlement has forced hundreds of shackdwellers to evacuate their homes. Those on the fringe of the settlement have experienced large boulders hitting their shacks. The mound from the dumping, which has shot up since the beginning of the year, has prevented winter rains from draining - leaving dozens of households flooded and abandoned. Yet, the owner of the plot adjacent to Siqalo who allows the dumping to go ahead unchecked, claims that the mound is a necessary safety barrier between his land and the settlement.
Masixole Feni
News | 5 August 2014
Two thousand residents removed forcefully from Firgrove, Somerset West, between 1971 and 1975 under the apartheid Group Areas Act, want their land back. âBlacksâ were moved to Mfuleni and âcolouredsâ were moved to Macassar.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
News | 4 August 2014
The case against ten Nomzamo (Lwandle) informal settlement residents, who were arrested during violent clashes between police and the community in June, has been postponed.
Barbara Maregele
Brief | 1 August 2014
The only things college student Sisanda Mbayi could save before her shack was demolished last month were her backpack and ID, the ministerial inquiry into the Nomzamo (Lwandle) evictions heard yesterday.
Barbara Maregele
News | 1 August 2014
Xoliswa Masakala broke into tears at the ministerial inquiry into the Lwandle evictions today as she was asked to comment on two pictures of herself which were published in the media. In one of the pictures, she is seen with her breasts and upper body completely exposed and the rest of her clothes appear torn.
Barbara Maregele
News | 29 July 2014
Darkness falls on the Koo valley. Andries Joostenberg, 63, and his son hang up their axes, stack the last logs of cut wood and trudge indoors. The temperature drops. In the farm cottage's kitchen a family huddles in semi-darkness around a wood stove. The electricity has been cut, so too the water: final instalments in a siege designed to drive Andries off the land.
Daneel Knoetze
Feature | 25 July 2014
Zone 14 residents in Makhaza are worried about the shoddy building of houses managed by the Niall Mellon Township Trust (NMTT). This has prompted the provincial Human Settlements Department to investigate after receiving numerous complaints.
Mary-Anne Gontsana
News | 23 July 2014
Nomzamo informal settlement residents would have been relocated to new land years ago had the City of Cape Town not withdrawn from negotiations in 2011, attorneys for the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) told the Lwandle Inquiry yesterday.
Barbara Maregele
News | 23 July 2014
Tensions flared during the second half of the Lwandle inquiry yesterday after Sesâkhona leader Loyiso Nkohla referred to Western Cape Premier Helen Zille as a âracist girlâ. The remark prompted an infuriated DA staffer, Jamie Turkington, to interject during Nkohlaâs presentation.
Barbara Maregele
News | 22 July 2014