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- Johannesburg metro police demolished homes in Rabie Ridge for the sixth time over the weekend.
- About 100 homes were demolished.
- The occupation of the former temporary Covid-19 campsite started in August last year.
On Saturday, an exhausted Tholakhele Nkosi was digging a hole, using just the head of a pickaxe, for a support pole for her shack.
The day before, she watched as the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD), for the sixth time, demolished her one-roomed zinc home in Phumla Mqashi informal settlement in Rabie Ridge, near Tembisa.
Her home was demolished twice in September, twice in November, again in February, and now in April. This time, law enforcement confiscated her materials.
She has no money for zinc sheets and will rebuild with boards from a nearby dump site.
The 52-year-old widow has learnt how to build a shack on her own.
In August 2023, about 100 families, mostly backyard dwellers, occupied land off Modderfonetin Road, where a temporary shelter had been set up and fenced during the Covid-19 lockdown, in an attempt to de-densify informal settlements.
Later, thieves cleaned the place out.
The occupiers believed the City would accept the settlement and provide services because it was municipal land.
READ | About 1 000 shacks demolished in Johannesburg by JMPD, Red Ants
They claimed that, recently, ANC politicians on the campaign trail told them they were safe.
On 18 April, to their surprise, the JMPD demolished 100 shacks.
Ward 80 councillor Melody Hlatswayo (ANC) told GroundUp it was an illegal occupation by people from as far as Orange Farm, Hammanskraal and Daveyton, who had heard the land was to be developed.
She said flats were to be built for people in Rabie Ridge, who had been waiting for houses for over 30 years. She said there were seven informal settlements in the area, and the development would alleviate this.
A community representative, Dineo Mokoena, said: "All we want is to be allowed to live on the land because we have nowhere else to go."
Mhlaliseni Khumalo, his wife and two children moved here when they could no longer afford rent. He has a disability and says the housing department promised to allocate him a flat in ward 45, but it never happened.
He said:
Lindelwa Tshoba has three children and seven grandchildren. She registered for a RDP house in 2004.
"I have been voting all these years, hoping to get a house, but to no avail," she said. "We are not working; what do they want us to do?"
The City of Johannesburg did not reply to our specific questions - but, in a joint statement on 5 April, the City and the Gauteng government said: "Members of the public are warned to resist temptations to illegally invade land and any government property as this will only result in them losing their hard-earned money and investments during evictions.
"Government will continue to work with the courts, developers and police to execute eviction orders against these illegal acts of land and house invasions."
