21 June 2007
Jo’burg: Red Ants flatten mine settlement (Article & Video)
The video is online at: http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=497823
THE informal settlement where four protesters were shot last week looked as if it had been hit by a tornado after it was demolished yesterday .
Food, clothing, furniture and pieces of wood lay scattered across the space after more than 400 Red Ants, accompanied by scores of armed police officers, tore down more than 500 shacks at Durban Deep Mine, west Johannesburg.
The demolition went ahead without serious incident. Last Thursday, squatters clashed with police and burned down a disused hospital mine.
But the demolition left many residents angry and confused about where they were going to spend the night.
Rondi Sibeyelo, 25, a mother of two children aged three months and 21 months, was just one of a group of young mothers with babies on their backs forced to watch their shacks taken down.
She said: “I don’t know where my babies are going to sleep tonight. We have nowhere to go. Worse, they took our building material.”
Thami Khoza, 25, said: “I’m worried about where my baby will sleep but also about what my boss might do [to me] for missing work. What is happening here is very sad. The government needs to build us houses.”
About 400 people were arrested after protesting about service delivery in Mamelodi, near Pretoria, yesterday , police said.
Police spokesman Inspector Katlego Mogale said the eviction was peaceful.
“Police came in numbers to ensure peace and no incident was reported,” she added.
Also see