THE court battle involving Wentworth residents occupying the transit camps is scheduled to resume at the Durban Magistrate’s Court on June 17.

The residents are fighting to have the court application brought by the Department of Human Settlements dismissed.

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On January 31, more than 200 people staged a protest outside the Durban Magistrate’s Court, opposing a legal application seeking permission to evict those who have illegally occupied transit camps in Austerville. Residents claim that their human rights have been violated.

A member of the community, Chief Mervin Damos, said the transit camp houses had remained vacant for over eight months. He said that prompted residents who had been waiting to get houses to occupy these temporary structures without permits from officials.

He said when the residents moved into these temporary houses, the infrastructure had already been vandalised by vagrants who first occupied the transit camp.

Damos said over 30 families are occupying these temporary structures as their flats that were being renovated are overcrowded.

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“For the past 40 years the people of Wentworth have been neglected. Why there has not been any housing project that benefits the people of Wentworth? We are a sidelined community and we demand that the authorities stop mistreating the people of Wentworth,” said Damos.

The provincial government had set aside a R120m project for the refurbishment of 1148 housing units in Wentworth in 2010.

However, the residents claim that the shoddy work by the contractors and corruption brought the project to its knees.

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