
Poor services a constant worry for Blowey residents
As the community of Blowey informal settlement are battling to put their lives together again, the issue of poor services in the area is like a monkey on their backs.
As the community of Blowey informal settlement are battling to put their lives together again, the issue of poor services in the area is like a monkey on their backs.
As the temperatures reached highs well over 30°C over the last two weeks, the sound of hammer blows against zinc was the order of the day in Blowey informal settlement in Cape Town as some of the victims of the weekend fire rebuilt their houses.
Blikkiesdorp is on a knife edge following the burning of shacks of those accused of habouring thugs and gangsters.
Housing organisations marched against evictions that are a feature of the state’s response to the growing wave of land occupations around the City.
Four accused of destroying shack belonging to a community leader of the Siyahlala land occupation in Khayelitsha appear in court,
Widespread protests for land and housing are taking place with backyarders and landless people occupying vacant land in Cape Town.
Backyarders in Vrygrond near Muizenberg have vowed to continue building shacks on a piece of land that they have occupied because they cannot “afford to pay rent” anymore.
In 2011, the informal settlement of Bhungeni in Butterworth in the Eastern Cape was demolished to make way for a shopping mall and the residents were relocated to a transit camp erected by the Department of Human Settlements. They remain to this day in this camp they called Eugene and no shopping mall has been built on the land they vacated.
The City of Cape Town and the Western Cape provincial government has stated that it will not buy land from Ross Demolition to build houses for Siqalo residents as the land is “not fit for human habitation”.
The conflict between the Siqalo and Mitchell’s Plain communities flared up late on Thursday, despite the suspension by Siqalo of their protest action. Police fired on a gathering of Mitchell’s Plain residents, killing one and wounding two.
Unions and communities marched against the steep tariff increases that the City of Cape Town is proposing.
Zwelethu Occupation Movement from Khayelitsha picketed outside provincial police headquarters demanding justice for murdered leaders.