A handful of residents who still remained at the old Makhulugama settlement saw their livelihoods turn into a pile of burning rubble on 19 November. This comes after the last remaining shacks were burnt down by the Red Ants.
The residents were upset because they say just after 2pm the Red Ants came to their small settlement, consisting of about 20 shacks, and burnt them down.
Earlier in the year the police and Red Ants raided the Makhulugama informal settlement and broke down all the shacks in the settlement. This was in an effort to rid the area of illegal miners who had taken over the area and tormented the residents.
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While some of the settlement’s residents were accommodated in halls in Krugersdorp West and Tarlton, many had nowhere to go.
Some of them however stayed at Makhulugama and that is where the problem came in.
Eddie Maloleke explained that the Red Ants came in with their trucks on Tuesday and burnt their shacks down. He asked why they were not given notice, saying that some of their belongings were loaded onto trucks before their houses were set alight but the rest burned to the ground.
He said that if they had just been given notice they would have taken their belongings and moved.
A march was organised in September to hand over a memorandum to the Executive Mayor of Mogale City, councillor Naga Patrick Lipudi. But the mayor invited the community leaders to rather sit down for a discussion and after the discussions the residents claimed that he had promised them that he would sort out their living situation by the end of October.
According to Freddy Kgokong, one of the community leaders who spoke to the mayor, he promised them that they could put up non-permanent structures and as houses at Waterfall in Tarlton opened up, the residents will be moved there.
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Residents say they called off the march because the mayor gave them a way to communicate with him, now he is ignoring them and they will proceed with the march again.
They are calling upon the mayor to go out and visit the settlement and the halls where these people have to live now and see the situation for himself.
The residents say that after initially breaking down the shacks, the residents were told that their belongings would be stored until more permanent housing could be found for them. They later learned that their belongings had been thrown away.
They claim that the people who were moved to the halls are getting expired food, and are not provided for at all. According to them, they haven’t heard from their councillor and he is not helping them at all.
After a while, the police showed up to remove the burning rubble, and residents stood and watched in anger. One resident claimed “They are quick to come when we block the road, but call them to report a rape and you hear nothing from them”.
The situation remains critical and the News will monitor any new leads on this ordeal.
