Living just metres from a railway line

“Imagine a 60-year-old man having to relieve himself in the bushes,” says Mzoli Voyi, 61.

Voyi’s is one of 18 households living in leaking shacks among bushes just a few metres away from the Mdantsane-East London Metrorail line. Named Macuba (meaning “Cigarettes”), the informal settlement has no toilets, water or electricity. The community says they are terrorised by criminals and the police.

Vuyokazi Mjonose moved to Macuba in 2006. She claims the land, now owned by PRASA, used to be part of her father-in-law’s farm. She used to live in Nxarhuni village, 45km away. Macuba is closer to town and it is easier for her husband to find occasional work. She runs a shebeen.

“Here I sell wine for R10. I buy the one-litre bottle of ‘Kalahari’ for R9 and I only gain R1, but it helps to put food on table. However, there are days when criminals come to demand the wine and cash. When we call the police, they don’t come, and if they do come, they also demand the wine and terrorise us,” says Mjonose.

“At night, police come here and wake us up demanding to search for stolen goods, saying that the thieves are hiding them in our shacks. We are staying with young kids here. They are traumatising them,’’ Mjonose says.

Mjonose says she was attacked three years ago by thugs. “I was with my sister, and my child was only three years old. I used a bread knife and stabbed one of the tsotsis to death.”

She says the magistrate found it was self-defence.

“Our shacks are close to the railway line and we hardly sleep when trains are moving,” says Voyi. But living at Macuba saves him transport costs. He does gardening, painting and plumbing.

‘’We leave in the morning and come back later. We all experience house break-ins from these thieves. But you will never see police here, unless they want to search our shacks for stolen goods. It is sad that at my age they think I can be a thief … They never found anything in any of the shacks,” he said.

East London police spokesperson Hazela Mqapa said, “If people are not happy with the police treatment they have the right to go the police station and ask for the station commissioner and report their matter.”

She said the residents’ issues would be raised with police management.

Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality spokesperson Bathandwa Diamond confirmed she received our media enquiry on 12 March and promised to respond, but she has not done so, despite repeated reminders over the past two weeks.

Donate using SnapScan.