Category Archives: eKukhayeni

Open Assembly in eKukhayeni on Saturday

Friday, 06 July 2018

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

Open Assembly in eKukhayeni on Saturday

Tomorrow our movement will hold an open, public assembly in eKukhayeni in Marianhill where S’fiso Ngcobo, our branch chairperson, was assassinated on 22 May 2018.

The ward councillor in the area, who is known as ‘Khekhe’, has vowed to destroy our movement. We have received numerous warnings, including from sympathetic people within the police and the ANC, that it will not be safe for us to go ahead with our meeting tomorrow.  Continue reading →

Statement on the Assassination of S’fiso Ngcobo

Thursday, 24 May 2018
Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

S’fiso Ngcobo

Statement on the Assassination of S’fiso Ngcobo

On Saturday our branch in eKukhanyeni, in Marianhill, held a very successful and well attended assembly. On Tuesday night, at around 7:30 pm, our chairperson in the branch, S’fisio Ngcobo, stepped out of his home to buy a cooldrink from a shop in a container next to his home. He had received death threats and was aware that it was not safe to be out at night. But the container was just a few meters from his home. He was shot, multiple times, by a group of unknown men. The police were called. They took more than three hours to arrive even though the local police station is nearby. Despite the danger large numbers of comrades immediately gathered at Ngcobo’s home.  Continue reading →

Statement on the Assassination of S’fiso Ngcobo

Statement on the assassination of S’fiso Ngcobo by the Right Reverend Rubin Phillip, Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Natal.

23 May 2018

Statement on the Assassination of S’fiso Ngcobo

On Tuesday night, 22 May 2018, S’fiso Ngcobo was assassinated in eKukhayeni, in Marianhill outside Durban. Ngcobo was the chairperson of the local branch of the shack dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo. Earlier on Tuesday another member of the movement, Ndumiso Mnguni, was shot and seriously wounded in the Foreman Road settlement in Clare Estate.

The eKukhayeni branch had held a well-attended mass meeting on Saturday 19 May and had reported threats. This is typical of a pattern of impressive local organisation followed by threats and then violence, including assassinations. Abahlali baseMjondolo have endured considerable violence, including a horrifying number of assassinations over the years. Continue reading →

I wish I could die: Heartbreak after land activist gunned down

Widow left in despair by assassination of a man who made many enemies while fighting for shack dwellers’ rights

24 May 2018
Jeff Wicks, The Times
Phumzile Mkhize weeps at her home in eKukhayeni in the wake of the murder of her husband, S’fiso Ngcobo.

Phumzile Mkhize weeps at her home in eKukhayeni in the wake of the murder of her husband, S’fiso Ngcobo. 
Image: Jeff Wicks

 

For Phumzile Mkhize – whose land rights activist husband S’fiso Ngcobo was gunned down just metres from his home on Tuesday night – the prospect of life without him is too much to bear.

“I wish I could die,” she said, as she wept at her home in the settlement of eKukhayeni near Mariannhill, west of Durban, on Wednesday.  Continue reading →

Another Abahlali activist shot dead

By   GroundUp

Abahlali baseMjondolo has urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to set up an independent committee to investigate the killing of their leaders, after chairperson S’fiso Ngcobo was killed on Tuesday night.

Last week President Cyril Ramaphosa deployed a ministerial team to investigate political killings in KwaZulu-Natal. This came after former ANC ward councillor Musawenkosi Mchunu was shot dead in Pietermaritzburg. According to Ramaphosa 14 politicians have been killed in the Moses Mabhida Region since the beginning of 2016. A member of the Inkatha Freedom Party, Sibuyiselo Dlamini, was shot the same night in Ulundi. Continue reading →