http://www.sowetan.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=745262
Sowetan 10/4/2008
600 homeless after red ants raid block
Mfundekelwa Mkhulisi
CHAOS: Evicted occupants tried to collect all they could after they were evicted from a building in Johannesburg’s CBD. PHOTO: VELI NHLAPO
More than 600 people occupying the 12-storey Barclay’s block of flats in the Johannesburg CBD were forced in to the streets when the notorious Red Ants raided the hijacked apartment block at 6am and kicked them out.
The illegal tenants watched in horror and dismay as the Red Ants threw their belongings out of the building and into the street .
The tenants said they were evicted without prior notice.
“We were woken up by the clanking of crowbars and hammers on the doors and the Red Ants shouting ‘get out, get out’ before they kicked the doors open,” Nomonde Sithole said.
She said she managed to hastily grab her two children and a small bag with some clothes in it before she fled the room.
“Everything else is still inside and the security guards do not want us to enter,” Sithole said, sitting on the pavement and breast-feeding her five-month-old baby.
The owners of the building, AFHCO, told Sowetan that they had bought the building last year with the intention to renovate it.
“It was illegally owned or in a ‘hijack state’ by police Inspector Sean Thwala when we bought it.
“We asked him to vacate but he did not. We then got an eviction order about two months ago,” AFHCO chief operating officer Renny Plit said.
Thwala, 40, of Booysens, and Inspector Tello Mota, 39, of Johannesburg central police station, are charged with murdering a key witness, Lindiwe Mthembu, 37, in a corruption case.
She was shot dead in her flat three days before she could testify against them in January.
Mthembu’s relative, Sabelo Ngubane, was also evicted yesterday.
He said: “I first lost my sister-in-law and now I’ve lost a place to stay.”
He said the occupants were evicted because corrupt residents’ committee members had insisted that tenants pay rents to them.
Sibonile Moyo, 28, from Zimbabwe said: “I have an 11-month-old baby and no place to stay.
“Where are we going to sleep?” she asked.