‘We want the land we’ve been evicted from’
Protesters from Dunoon travelled to Mayor Patricia de Lille’s office to hand over a memorandum demanding the City give them the land they have been evicted from.
|||Cape Town - “It is our right to have our own piece of land,” protesters from Dunoon and EFF members told the representatives from the City of Cape Town on Friday.
The group of about 800 protesters had travelled into the city from Dunoon to deliver a list of grievances to Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille’s office.
The three representatives from the City listened as the memorandum was read by one of the EFF members on the steps of the Civic Centre.
“It is our right to have our own piece of land. Now we are here to demand the piece of land where we have been evicted three times,” the EFF member said.
The memorandum was signed by the representatives and the people made their journey back to Dunoon.
Protests over a piece of land along the N7 erupted in Dunoon early on Friday morning, allegedly preventing MyCiTi buses from leaving the area, before protesters set out for the local railway station to make their way to the city.
Last month, backyard-dwellers from Dunoon had built structures on the piece of land along the N7 which were subsequently demolished by City of Cape Town officials. As the protests turned violent, a MyCiTi bus station was damaged, and some of the protesters were arrested.
On Friday protesters gathered outside the Stables MyCiTi bus depot in Dunoon before making their way to the train station at Century City to travel to the city centre.
It is understood that police used stun grenades and several roads in the Dunoon area were blocked off after fires were started by some protesters.
The city had closed three MyCiTi stations.
Hundreds of motorists were delayed by the road closures and the march.
Earlier protester Xolani Hlekiso said that they had identified a piece of land suitable for dwellings but the city did not want them to move on to it. “We get exploited by our landlords. Rent goes up every month. We can’t even use the toilet inside the house.”
Hlekiso said they had been trying to engage the city to find space for homes, but to no avail.
Dolly Vinqise said they did not have proper places to live and the last time they built shacks, they were destroyed.
“We are tired of building just for our houses to be demolished by the city. We can’t afford to keep on buying material because when they demolish, they take the material with them.”
IOL and Cape Argus
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