An association calling itself the Cape Flats Backyard Dwellers Association has illegally occupied in District 6, opposite the Cape Town university of technology compass. The group have set up a campsite on the land claiming they have no nowhere else to go due to economic circumstances as a result of Covid 19 job losses.

Shariefa Dollie, the founder of the Cape Flats Backyard Dwellers Association, says the group has engaged the human settlements department of the City of Cape Town in the past few months in order to have their grievances addressed. Dollie alleges most of the people in the camp are being ignored by the City of Cape Town even though they have been on the City’s housing waiting list for years.

Deidre Swartbooi, one of the residents in the informal settlement, claims Malusi Booi, the city’s mayoral committee member for human settlements told the group to go back where they came from. She also believes that people from Cape Town and the Western Cape are victims of economic apartheid. She also claimed that apartheid never really ended in South Africa.

The City did not responded at time of publication.