Non Compliance with the new Coal Mine
Lorraine Kakaza
Kliprand Farm residents raised their concerns at Newcastle. This is a community that is staying where the mine is situated which is Ikwezi Coal Mine, the mine is opencast in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Kliprand residents have been raising their concerns since the mine started operating in their area whereby concerns regarding noise pollution, air pollution, and water pollution were amongst the issues of concern that the mine poses unto them daily.
In 2021, residents protested outside the mine, and there were reports of multiple arrests and heavy-handed police tactics to disperse the crowd, including the use of rubber bullets. The Residents claimed that blasting at the site had damaged their houses leaving them with cracks, they argued that smoke from the blasts was damaging their health, and their livestock was suffering as a result of grazing on land that had been polluted by coal dust.
There were many factors the mine was polluting local water supplies, Ikwezi mine continuously refused to take responsibility for its actions regarding the impacts caused by its operations. There was an agreement signed to remove or relocate graves and they were removed accordingly where four graves of children remained.
They promised us that the graves won’t be affected but that was just a promise as the graves were damaged. The graves are damaged by the mine as we knew after they sent us pictures, we couldn’t recognize the graves as they were seriously damaged and the digging of ancestral graves is traumatising and unbearable as those are our beloved families.
We decided to relocate there a few months ago as the situation was getting worse. We have tried several times to communicate with them, but they don’t respond to us. They promised that our graves would be protected and now we are facing these consequences. We don’t know what’s the way forward as they are not responding to our calls or to any of our messages and don’t know if they are going to compensate us.
