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Community of Marievale fighting SANDF in court for illegal evictions

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The community of Marievale says they will fight what they term illegal evictions by the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).

Last month the SANDF forcefully evicted around 600 residents from an abandoned military base in Nigel, east of Johannesburg.

Marievale was officially shut down as a military base in 1996, and the land was then gradually occupied by homeless groups including military veterans and their families.

Robert Moyana and his wife are taking one step at a time after traumatic evictions by SANDF at an old military base that was abandoned years ago.

The couple was forced to sleep in an open veld for two days with their three days old baby.

They are now squatting with other residents who have also been evicted from Marievale at another property that belongs to the department of public works.

Here they have erected a one-roomed shack using plastic bags. The shack only has a double bed and nothing else.

The rest of their belongings are left at the military base which is now under guard.

Moyana survives by selling home-made bath tubs.

In this area there is no running water or electricity, residents answer the call of nature in the nearby bushes.

Moyana says he still remembers the day they were evicted as if it happened yesterday:

“When we were evicted my baby was three days old. We were not given a notice that we should vacate the property. We lost everything. Our belongings were damaged. We could not have enough time to remove our belongings because the women soldiers were also beating us up.

Another resident Nondumiso Mhlwazi says things have gone from bad to worse. She says at least at the base they had running water and electricity, but now they are living in the bushes like animals.

“Where are we supposed to go. Our children were born here.I ran away from that place and left all my belongings because they were beating us up. These children have nothing even beds, nothing. There are also no toilets here. When the nature calls we have to go to the bushes.”

A community leader, Chris Koitsioe says the SANDF had no court order to evict them. He says they are of the view that evictions were illegal and hope justice will prevail when they go to court at the end of next month:

”Things are not easy you can see the water is also dripping. There is not enough water. The municipality could not provide the toilets. I once requested the municipality to at least provide temporary toilets. But it’s like no they cannot do that. I don’t know they got their reasons for that, but now we hope for the best that maybe on the 29th January we will hear justice prevailing at the high court.”

The Right2Know campaign, which is helping the community to fight the evictions has called on the public to help with any kind of donations for the affected families of Marievale.

The organisation’s General Moyo says, “We made a call to any humanitarian organisations that can assist in terms of contributions or any kind of donations towards the community. Because the community there, they don’t have any building material some lost their belongings such as clothes, groceries. Some community members don’t even have shelter due to what happened there.”

The South African National Defence Force spokesperson Siphiwe Dlamini says they cannot comment on the matter as it is now before court.

 

 

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