Displaced residents are sheltering at an overcrowded community hall with limited privacy and health concerns after fleeing zama zamas and living are Randfontein community hall
The residents were forced to vacate their home on 10 January as a result of an escalation in illegal mining. They say since last November, their community has been terrorised by illegal miners who have also threatened to kidnap their children.
Violence and extortion by zama-zamas (illegal miners) has forced more than 300 families to flee the Sporong informal settlement in Randfontein to a community hall, where they live now under cramped and unhygienic conditions.
Hundreds of families who fled their homes. They’re now living under poor conditions at a community hall. The west of Johannesburg is considered one of the high-risk areas, known to have hundreds of illegal miners operating in the vicinity.
The residents say the hall is extremely overcrowded.
For almost two weeks, more than 600 people left all their belongings behind, took their children, packed all they could carry and fled to the hall in the Randfontein CBD. There, they share two toilets — one for men and one for women, with no privacy, bathing in front of others.
Residents were forced to flee Sporong because illegal miners regularly invaded their homes, assaulted them and demanded cash. They also said there would be prolonged gunfire in the area from the zama-zamas, sometimes lasting hours.
One of the residents said that when the situation got unbearable, they asked the ward councillor, Alfred Thenjekwayo, to help them, as they were not feeling safe.
Activists say the crisis reflects a lack of political will and a failure to confront illegal mining.
