25 January 2012
An urgent call for media intervention
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Occupiers Currently Under Police Attack in Shallcross

The Ekuphumeleni Abahlali branch in Shallcross, in ward 17 under Councillor Shembe Nomvula (073 782 7358), is currently under attack and eviction from the South African Police Service (SAPS).

Everybody know that housing is a crisis in South Africa particularly in Durban where we just heard that at least R532 million has gone missing from the municipal housing budget. The Auditor General has just realized a report about corruption, mismanagement of funds and irregularities and as far as the supply chain management is concerned.

Yet at the same time as the provision of housing has been taken over by corrupt politicians and their friends to make them rich hundreds of thousands of people in this city continue to live in shacks facing fires, floods, rats and evictions.

In Shallcross there are shack dwellers some of whom had occupied neglected RDP houses which were built over 2 years ago and then left uncompleted. The residents who have been waiting for more than 17 years for the houses promised to them decided to occupy these houses after some of them, including the old granny in her 80 years who lives with her grand children, decided to occupy them after the heavy wind had destroyed their shacks last year.

The heavily armed South African Police Service just invaded the residents without any notice and without any court order throwing their belongings outside and evicting them without any regard for law. So far about 8 families are left homeless. This eviction is not only illegal but it is also criminal. It must be condemned in its strongest term.

We call upon the media to rush into the scene to witness how the so called “law enforcement agencies” are illegally terrorizing our communities in the name of law and order. We suspect that they got their mandate from eThekwini Municipality which has never carried out any eviction within the premises of the law.

For updates and further information please contacts:

Lucia : 084 635 0293
Lungi : 078 622 6999
Abahlali: 031 304 6420