Wednesday, 29 July 2009
Press Statement from Abahlali baseSiyanda B

eThekwini Electricity Policy Takes Another Life – 16 Year Old Boy Dies in Siyanda

Community Meeting, Siyanda, 30 July 2009. The meeting was to plan a memorial for Sakhephi Zenda - a police helicopter was flying low overhead...

Sakhephi Emmanuel Zenda, 16, was discovered dead at 7:00 a.m. on Monday 27 July 2009 in B Section, Siyanda. It seems that he had been electrocuted from a badly made connection during the night. He was a grade 8 pupil at Zeph Dlomo High School in KwaMashu.

KWAMASHU – 23 July 2009 – At 3pm this afternoon, Nandi Mandela, along with police, and a demolition team, attempted to evict three families living in the Richmond Farm transit camp. Mandela and the team broke the locks on the front door, entered, and dumped all the families’ personal belongings outside. The families were at work and school at the time. They received no notice of the eviction. A truck waited to transport them from the site.

Meanwhile, 6 other families living in shacks in nearby Siyanda Section B were told they must move to the Richmond Farm transit camp. They are to replace the 3 families, whose eviction was attempted today. These families also received no official eviction notice, which by law, must be ordered by the courts and delivered by the sheriff. The 6 families are to be forcibly removed to the transit camp to make way for a fence that will run alongside the MR577, a new freeway construction. Nandi Mandela is a representative of Linda Masinga & Associates, a consultancy firm hired by the Department of Transport.