Evicted from South Africa's hijacked buildings | Times Reports

Remington House is the most longstanding hijacked building in Johannesburg. With police and officials on their payroll, slumlords were left for years to run the high-rises, packing 1000 people into every available space.

The Times reports from the scene on the day of eviction, as riot police circled Remington House as private security guards went floor by floor, marching residents out to the pavement followed by their worldly possessions.

Sitting on her mattress with a mound of bags and her two children, Zinhle Thuli, 29, had lived in the same eighth-floor room since she was 14. Her mother had brought her family from rural South Africa to hunt for work in the bustling city. Back then, before the criminals took over, squatters ran a cleaner, safer building, she said.

She stayed, despite the filth and threats, for the work she would not find back home. “There were problems here, but it was the best place in the end,” Thuli said.

Read the best of our journalism: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/
Subscribe to The Times and The Sunday Times YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/subscription_...
Find us on Facebook:   / timesandsundaytimes  
Find us on Twitter:   / thetimes  
Find us on Instagram:   / thetimes  

#southafrica #johannesburg #crime