‘I’ll build a wall to keep you apart’
SOLUTION FOR WARRING RESIDENTS Mother tells of devastation as her house is razed to the ground by land invaders.
Standing on the back of a police van among debris of rocks, rubber bullet cartridges and burned tyres, Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga told disgruntled Mamelodi residents he would build a wall between the land invaders and formal residents to end violent conflict.
Unrest continued overnight in an exchange of petrol bombs and rocks between homeowners of Mahube Valley and the land invaders in the adjacent informal settlement.
The feud was allegedly sparked by illegal electricity connections from the settlement, leaving the residents of Mahube Valley with no power since Monday.
Several shacks were torched, while a number of homes were petrol-bombed. Water was streaming down the streets from burst water meters, and a local substation was also torched.
Florence Motise, a homeowner, said she grabbed her two children and ran for her life after a petrol bomb flew into her window on Wednesday night.
“My husband was at work and I was sleeping. So were my children, aged three and 16. I suddenly heard a big noise and when I checked, there were flames everywhere. I managed to get my children and we escaped. Everything is damaged.”
But Matlakala Sebela, a resident of the informal settlement, said despite not benefitting from the illegal connections, she returned home from church to find her shack also in ashes.
“I am not a part of this, but I don’t have a home anymore. The people of Mahube burned it,” she said while sifting through the ashes.
The tension prompted Msimanga to the scene, where he presented a solution of building a wall to separate the conflicting groups. He said he could not yet remove the land invaders, but could re-route the power supply.
“We got an interdict for these land invaders to stop damaging property and we will create a wall between them to allow the situation to calm down so we can find a permanent solution to their problems.”
The mayor, however, left a dissatisfied group, who complained that the wall would block the main road to the mall and local schools.