Violence and extortion by zama-zamas forced more than 400 families to flee the Sporong informal settlement in Randfontein to a community hall, where they live now under cramped and unhygienic conditions. Thirteen days ago, 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.
They have no privacy and even have to bathe in front of others. Residents said they had no choice but 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. “He first took us to Fitzbury hall, and the residents there chased us away and told us the hall belonged to them. They even told us that we are going to bring them zama-zamas.
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The councillor made a plan and took us to Randgate hall.” They shoot people in the streets and go into homes, especially targeting the elderly and stealing their social grants. When a Sowetan team visited the hall on Tuesday, women and men sat among folded blankets, while some residents prepared food in the kitchen. Among those sheltering at the hall was Johanna Bergman, who moved there with her six children, including seven-week-old twins.
“For me, being here with my children is not a good experience, but at least we are safe from the zama-zamas,” she said. Bergman said there was not enough food at the hall and that the conditions were not hygienic. “We can’t complain because we feel safer here.
There are no zama-zamas, no gunshots, no robberies or killings,” she said. Bergman said she had lived at Sporong since 2017, but things changed last year when residents began to be terrorised by illegal miners.
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