RUST-TER-VAAL.- Ramaphosa Informal Settlement residents near Rust-ter-Vaal say that the area they occupy is their last hope of owning land.
They are adamant that they are going nowhere despite the pending eviction order for their removal. Instead, they threaten to increase the number of shacks, despite two people including a Red Ant dying during evictions recently.
Residents ask where they must go when the Rust-ter-Vaal community chases them away. “If only those community members can prove – as they claim- that we are foreigners in our own country!”
The community members told Sedibeng Ster last week that most of them are long time residents of Rust-ter-Vaal.
“The Rust-ter-Vaal landlords fear that their milking cows are now going. Most landlords are not working. They survived on the money we pay as tenants.”
The Emfuleni Municipality has declared the area a dolomite zone. Madoda Mkhombeni, branch chairperson of the ANC, said hundreds of shacks are still coming. “Not all the areas are dolomite,” he said.
Speaking about the recent visit of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), Mkhombeni said that they received an invitation that the SAHRC will be also addressing the squatters but that this did not happen.
“About 400 residents waited for the commission on an open field – to no avail.” Another resident, Pinky Mokoena said they are worried about the outcome of the discussion between the residents, the commission and the mayor as the meeting took place ‘in our absence’. “We were hoping that the meeting would unite the two battling communities.”
