The illegal eviction of the Nkhumane family from a farm dwellers community
Jerry Mosehlana
The Nkhumane family was painfully evicted from the farm they were born and raised on, by a person who leased the farm from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and Land Reform.
The Nkhumanes are a family of 8 living on Kirstenbosch farm in the Mogalakwena Municipal Area. That was before they were forcefully evicted in February 2013. The evictors removed them and took them to live with the first-born child in Uitspan village. One property belonging to the family was broken because of the eviction process. The relocation process has negatively affected the livelihood of the family, as they left the graves of their family members on the farm. Graves play an important role in the life of Africans and their spiritual well-being.
We met with the District Department of Rural Development so that they could intervene by returning the Nkhumane family to the farm. Their eviction is a violation of their land rights, and they are unable to take care of their graves as part of their heritage site. However, the district department failed to intervene, and the family is still impoverished. Mr. Nkhumane who is an elderly man, and the head of the household is currently in hospital due to an illness that may be caused by land trauma.
Last Thursday the 16th of May 2024, we went to stage a sit-in- in the Provincial Department of Land Reform. We delivered a Memorandum of Demands to the head of Legal Services Mr Tshililo. The department promised to consider our memorandum, by giving Mr Nkhumane the priority that is most needed by the family as a matter of emergency. He then promised to restore the full land rights to the Nkhumane family.
We have given them 07 days to respond to our memorandum, and should the Provincial Department fail to fulfill their promise we are going to escalate the matter by staging another sit-in in the Minister’s office. We are determined to leave no stone unturned until justice is served to the Nkhumane family and any other family facing an unjust land issue.
