‘WE WILL DIE FOR OUR LAND’
JACKSONVILLE residents are refusing to leave their shacks and yesterday barricaded roads leading into Roodepan with burning objects and rocks, after they were handed notices regarding their evictions that will come into effect next week.
One mother said that council would take her plot over her and her children’s dead bodies.
“We are prepared to die for our land, we are not afraid, they must kill us with their bulldozers. We are not going anywhere, this land is ours,” she said yesterday.
“None of us would be occupying shacks here if we had somewhere else to go. We cannot live with 16 people in a house, that is why we moved to Jacksonville so that we could have a place of our own.
“How can they tell us to move by next week, we will be homeless Danie van der Lith
They added that a list of beneficiaries had been drawn up who would be moving into houses that would be built on the land that they were currently occupying.
“We do not know who these people are and not one of us has been included on that list although we placed our names on the waiting list in 2001. They call us illegal squatters but yet they still want our votes.”
Spokesperson for Sol Plaatje Municipality, Sello Matsie, said that this was not the first time that the municipality had offered alternative accommodation to the squatters.
“They have unfortunately refused the offer and will have until April 16 to vacate those areas according to the court order,” said Matsie.
“While we condemn the illegal land invasion without due process, we advise communities to work with the municipality on matters like these. We acknowledge the historical land starvation but due process has to be followed in the allocation of land for residential purposes.”