{"id":169326,"date":"2020-10-19T22:01:08","date_gmt":"2020-10-19T20:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/land-occupiers-destroy-unoccupied-shacks-in-overcrowded-township\/"},"modified":"2020-10-19T22:01:08","modified_gmt":"2020-10-19T20:01:08","slug":"land-occupiers-tear-down-unoccupied-shacks-in-overcrowded-township","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/land-occupiers-tear-down-unoccupied-shacks-in-overcrowded-township\/","title":{"rendered":"Land occupiers tear down \u2018unoccupied\u2019 shacks in overcrowded township"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Thamsanqa%20Mbovane\/area_11_uitenhage_destroyed_shacks_2020.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/land-occupiers-tear-down-unoccupied-shacks-in-overcrowded-township.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Noma Sozwe and Nokuzola Ponase gathered what remained of the shacks demolished by other land occupiers in Gunguluza in Uitenhage at the weekend. The area has become overcrowded and the group accused the shack owners of no longer using the homes. Photo: Thamsanqa Mbovane<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>At least 30 shacks were demolished by other shack dwellers in area 11, Gunguluza in Uitenhage on Saturday.<\/li>\n<li>They claim that the shacks were not being used by the owners.<\/li>\n<li>This is the biggest informal settlement in Uitenhage with over 3,000 shacks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Noma Sozwe spent most of Sunday rebuilding her daughter\u2019s two shacks that were demolished by a group of people who also wanted to occupy the space in area 11, Gunguluza in Uitenhage.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday, a group of people tore down more than 30 shacks they claimed were not being used by the owners. The group were upset because they apparently believe that if their shacks are not on the site, they will not benefit from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/overcrowded-bobani-village-will-soon-get-toilets\/\">building of 846 toilets<\/a> for phase two of a Human Settlements project in the area.<\/p>\n<p>In July, the community protested, demanding that the 846 toilets be built as part of the municipality\u2019s Covid-19 plan. The construction <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/plans-build-hundreds-toilets-stopped-uitenhage-politics\/\">had been stopped<\/a>. This is the biggest informal settlement in Uitenhage with over 3,000 shacks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is devastating\u2026I spent over R4,000 on building material for both my daughters\u2019 shacks when I invaded the land in January 2019,\u201d said Sozwe. She said she had built the shacks for her daughters because her RDP house was small and had become overcrowded.<\/p>\n<p>She said her daughters had not been sleeping in the shacks because both had newborn babies, so they were staying with her. But the shacks \u201chad furniture inside, including beds\u201d, said Sozwe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is an insult as most shacks that were broken down belonged to single women, some of whom have other reasons for not sleeping in their shacks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Another resident, Noluvuyo Tsotsa, said she arrived in area 11 on Sunday afternoon to discover that her shack had been demolished. \u201c<span>We have all invaded this land and no one has a right to destroy another invader\u2019s shack,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Area 11 development committee chairperson, Luyanda Manyamu, condemned the destruction of shacks. \u201cSoon we will have a general meeting and discuss the matter which was initiated by a certain group of people from a certain corner. They will have to explain themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ward 45 Councillor Siphiwo Plaatjies said: \u201cWe don\u2019t get involved in the destruction of occupiers\u2019 shacks and we don\u2019t mediate. This [land] is still regarded as invaded land and we don\u2019t interfere with who builds a shack. Our job is to see that residents are getting proper services and that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"article-copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2020 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/land-occupiers-tear-down-unoccupied-shacks-in-overcrowded-township.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Noma Sozwe and Nokuzola Ponase gathered what remained of the shacks demolished by other land occupiers in Gunguluza in Uitenhage at the weekend. The area has become overcrowded and the group accused the shack owners of no longer using the homes. Photo: Thamsanqa Mbovane At least 30 shacks were demolished by other shack dwellers in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":169327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-169326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/land-occupiers-tear-down-unoccupied-shacks-in-overcrowded-township.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}