Pretoria - More than 200 people – including women, children and the elderly – who have called a piece of land in Mamelodi east home for the past year-and-a-half as they have no money and nowhere to go, said they lived in fear after the City of Tshwane last week demolished their shacks for a third time in a bid to get rid of them.
The group turned to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, last week, with the help of Lawyers for Human Rights, after their shacks were once again demolished last week and, according to them, the few possessions they had were confiscated.
Apart from having nowhere to go, the court was told that the City, that through a security company demolished the shacks, did not have an eviction court order. Thus, the so-called eviction was illegal.
The court interdicted the City from conducting further illegal evictions against this group. The court, as in many other cases of this nature over the years, once again stressed that people cannot simply be forced off land if there is no court order in this regard.
The City, meanwhile, did not file any papers in opposition to this application.
The group has settled on land belonging to the City called Waterkloof Phase 1, in Mamelodi East. They are known as the Boiketlong Informal Settlement. Poula Lekhulene, one of the residents, said in court papers that their lives had become a nightmare. She said last week’s demolition of the shacks was the third by the City since they moved on to the land.
“All we want is to live in peace and have some sort of roof over our heads. We simply have nowhere else to go. The City demolished our shacks and removed our property from the settlement twice around mid-2021, in May this year, and now again.”
Lekhulene stated that consequently they were homeless due to the “unlawful acts” of the respondents, although they maintained their presence on the property as best as they could until the next round of evictions and demolitions. The settlement currently consists of about 200 shacks, and about 50 shacks were destroyed last week.
The applicants each represent a group comprising approximately 200 indigent persons, many of whom are children, women and elderly people. Most residents claim to be unemployment as a result of Covid-19.
Some make a living by doing odd jobs, while most are unemployed.
Boiketlong Informal Settlement was established on vacant land. Members of the community, faced with poverty, desperation and lack of shelter, occupied and settled on the land from the beginning of last year.
Lekhulene said this served as their home until the start of the cycle of unlawful evictions in mid-2021. She said they had received several notices from the City that they were illegally occupying the land, bu no court order was obtained to evict them.
During the operation by the metro police and a security company, about 50 shacks were destroyed.
“They removed our building materials and took or destroyed many other personal items including clothes, blankets, kitchen appliances, groceries, medication, money and identity documents.”
Lekhulene said two days after this last incident, they yet again received notice to vacate the land. Thus, she said, they had no choice but to turn to the court.
Pretoria News