Buziwe Nocuze
When she got back from holiday Asiphe Budaza made a shocking discovery: her entire shack and everything inside it had been dismantled and stolen.
Twenty-seven-year old Budaza lives in the Covid-19 squatter camp in Kraaifontein, Cape Town, which is plagued by burglaries.
When she went to the Eastern Cape on holiday for four months, she asked her neighbours to keep an eye on her shack.
But while she was away, she got a call from her friend to say her home had been stolen.
When she returned, she was shocked at what she found. Her shack was gone!
“At first, I thought she was playing around until she sent me photos of where my shack used to be. It was gone,” said Budaza.
She had been worried that thieves would break into her home – but she never thought they would make off with her entire home!
They took almost everything inside the shack, leaving her with nothing except a pair of jeans and a blanket.
She told Scrolla.Africa that she knew about break-ins, especially in squatter camps. But she had never heard about the theft of a whole shack.
In her case it appears the thieves started by breaking in and stealing a heater and a stove.
They left but soon returned to take everything, including her two beds.
“I don’t know where to start looking because my shack was in between other shacks. It is strange that people came and removed it without anyone seeing anything,” she said.
Scrolla.Africa went to the area with Budaza and community members said they didn’t see anything unusual.
“In an informal settlement, things are different. People are always fixing their shacks. Maybe the criminals were mistaken for people doing repair work,” said a resident.
Budaza went to the house of a committee member. When she got there, she was welcomed by a notice that said: “We are no longer solving people’s issues, even if it is a robbery or you are attacked by someone. If you have a problem, look for your relatives or your homeboys/girls.”
The notice further said they are staying in a free space where everyone can do anything they want.
A community member who asked to remain anonymous said the people who stole Asiphe’s shacks knew she was not going to be there for a while.
“I hope that whoever did this gets caught otherwise we will continue having incidents like these,” said the community member.
Budaza said she didn’t report the case to the cops because she believed that she wouldn’t get any help as the investigation would drag on for a long time. Instead, she is now staying with a friend.
