Two disgruntled families in northern KwaZulu-Natal say they are forced to live "like animals", caged within an electric fence in the Babanango Game reserve for refusing to sell their ancestral land.
The two families, farm dwellers in Paardeplaat, are part of a group legally challenging a land claim made in 2017. The claim resulted in 52 farms on 24,000 hectares being awarded to the Emcakwini Trust, which subsequently leased the farms to the Babanango lodge and game reserve.
But the residents of 16 of those farms, located throughout the game reserve, do not want the trust representing them. They insist they never consented to the trust leasing the land to Babanango reserve, which is managed by the African Habitat Conservancy.
Two families living closest to the lodge have now been fenced in. The others are still living on reserve land but are not close to the lodge.
The group is seeking an interdict to stop the trust and conservancy from undertaking any further development on the land, pending their application to rescind the 2017 land claim.
While the trust has paid out millions of rand to dozens of Babanango families to leave, members of the aggrieved group say they are being forced off their land.
They have refused R2m offered to each of them for their land.
“After we declined their offers, they decided to cage us in here like animals. The electric fence erected here in June stops us accessing rivers, graveyards, ruins and plantation fields,” said Mbongeni Qwabe, 40, whose family has been living there for more than 100 years.
“Our sin is we are from a poor rural community and they do this to us. We survive by planting and selling livestock. All we wanted was our land back so we can farm in peace.”
Qwabe said after blocking off the rivers and the plantation fields the trust provided them with one water tank which they share with their livestock.
In addition to not wanting to leave their ancestral graves and land, the compensation offered was “far less” than the value of the land to which they are entitled.
“I was born here, my forefathers were also born here and their graves are inside the reserve with rhino and giraffe walking on top of them,” said Qwabe.
They are unable to get to the graveyard, which they believe connects them with their ancestors and is the site for their rituals.
Another resident, Nkosingiphile Khumalo, 75, said: “The trust and the reserve don’t care about people. The trust is the only one benefiting from this reserve, not the people it claims it represents. They will have to kill me first because I’m not going to move out of here.”
Seyms Brugger, responding on behalf of the trust and the reserve, said there was an ongoing attempt by the concerned group to discredit the trust and scupper the “incredible opportunity” afforded to beneficiaries and neighbouring communities through the establishment of the Babanango Game Reserve.
“In the meantime, these two homesteads have been securely fenced out of the reserve and have been provided with more than sufficient grazing land for their livestock, including easy access to water and firewood at their doorstep,” said Brugger.
The trust and reserve had tried unsuccessfully to resolve concerns by the group and described its allegations as “frivolous and vexatious and without substance”.
Adv Thalente Mhlongo, representing the aggrieved community, said it was awaiting a court date.
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