Category Archives: Nation Nyoka

Tembisa land occupiers accuse police of brutality

Tembisa land occupiers accuse police of brutality

City says it is committed to building houses on the land

Bongani Siwela rebuilds his shack with paper after it was demolished by the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department during an eviction. Siwela, who is unemployed, makes a living by recycling plastic and paper. He moved to this area because he could not afford the R750 rent which he was charged in Tembisa to stay in a backyard shack. Photo: Ihsaan Haffejee

By 

Land occupiers in Tembisa say they have been at the receiving end of violent, persistent and unlawful attacks by police, with the most brutal attack taking place on Monday, 30 July.

Shack dwellers on the land, which they have named Phumula Mqashi, were allegedly stripped naked and beaten by both Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMPD) and South African Police Service (SAPS) members from Tembisa. Their makeshift shacks were burnt. Continue reading →

Homeless and hopeless after fire ravages Good Hope

GroundUp

“Why are people still living here despite the countless promises to move them?” asks activist

Photo of aftermath of fire

A shack fire in Good Hope settlement in Ekhuruleni left at least ten families homeless. Photo: Nation Nyoka/New Frame

By Nation Nyoka

5 July 2018

At least ten shacks have been destroyed, and one damaged, following a fire that spread from one shack to adjacent shacks in the space of an hour in Germiston’s Good Hope shack settlement on Wednesday.  Continue reading →

Metro police fire rubber bullets at residents in Ekurhuleni’s Good Hope settlement

Nation Nyoka & Dennis Webster, The Daily Maverick

Residents of the Good Hope settlement in Germiston have occupied vacant land on the border of Germiston and Boksburg, partly in response to lack of space at the existing settlement. On Thursday morning, Ekurhuleni Metro Police dispersed them with rubber bullets. 

New Frame witnessed a brutal attack by Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMPD) officers on residents of the Good Hope shack settlement in Germiston, Ekurhuleni, in the early hours of Thursday morning.

At least one resident, Siyambusa Mpolase, was arrested.

The police action was in response to the occupation of a piece of nearby land which began on Friday 11 May.  Continue reading →

Overcrowding leads to Ekurhuleni land occupation

Nation Nyoka, GroundUp

A few days before a cold front swept over Gauteng, a group of shack dwellers braved a cold night in a bid to secure a piece of vacant land.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, 12 May, residents from Good Hope’s Extension 5 erected makeshift structures on a piece of land adjacent to a shack settlement called Ramaphosa in Germiston, Ekurhuleni. The community had been organising the land occupation for six months, claiming that the land had been vacant for 40 years. Continue reading →