A Mpumalanga Generation Faces Erasure: “This Is Our Only Home”

For Xolani Dikeni, the dust of Naledi village is in his bones. He moved here as an eight-year-old boy, his father a miner who was promised this house as a home for his family. Now, that same dust is laced with fear. The company that owns the land, Seriti Resources, has threatened to wipe Naledi and its sister village, Lesedi, clean off the map.

“My father told me this house was donated to him by his employer,” Dikeni says, a community leader grappling with a bewildering legacy. “Now I am told to leave. Where must we go?” His story is not unique. In these two villages near Middelburg, roughly 400 families are staring down the barrel of a demolition order, with Seriti offering no plan for alternative accommodation.

More Than Bricks: The Heart of a Community

This isn’t just about houses. It’s about three schools where children currently learn. It’s about two churches where families gather in faith. It’s about soccer fields that have seen decades of weekend matches and community celebrations. These are the pillars of a community that took root in the 1980s, built by the now-defunct Middelburg Mine for its workers.

Pastor Elliot Khoza of Lesedi village has been here for forty years. He recounts a critical turning point: in 2004, when Ingwe Collieries owned the mine, employees were formally given ownership of these houses. For years, subsequent mining companies maintained the infrastructure. The problem, he explains, began when Seriti took over and tried to hand over service provisionwater, sewage, electricityto the Steve Tshwete Local Municipality. The municipality refused.

“We understand Seriti complains about the cost,” Pastor Khoza says, “but demolition was supposed to be the last resort, not the first option.” The electricity has already been cut, a harsh foretaste of what’s to come.

A Legal Grey Zone and a Chilling Pattern

Seriti’s position, laid out in a September letter, is clear. They own the infrastructure. There are no formal lease agreements. The residents, they say, do not pay for services. Therefore, the company asserts its right to demolish.

But for residents, this logic ignores history, dignity, and a fundamental sense of justice. They argue they were granted homes, not loans. The municipality’s silence in this standoff only deepens the anxiety.

This threat is not an isolated incident. It fits a chilling pattern for Seriti. Just two weeks ago, the company demolished 60 houses belonging to former Anglo American employees in Kriel. In January, they confirmed plans to evict residents on a farm near Delmas. Each action sends a ripple of dread through mining communities across Mpumalanga.

On social media, the reaction is one of outrage and grim recognition. #MiningDisplacement and #Seriti are gaining traction, with many South Africans drawing parallels to the nation’s long, painful history of forced removals. “We are watching apartheid-era tactics being used by corporations,” one commentator wrote.

The Human Cost of “Progress”

While Seriti states that any demolition will only follow “all legal processes,” the human cost is already being paid in sleepless nights and uncertain futures. These villages represent a tapestry of intergenerational lives woven into the very soil of Mpumalanga.

The core question remains: what is the responsibility of a powerful mining entity to the community that literally built its wealth? Is the legacy of mining only the extracted coal, or is it also the people who dedicated their lives to the industry?

For the children in Naledi’s schools and the congregation in Lesedi’s churches, the answer is simple. This is not just company land. This is home. And the fight to stay is a fight for their very history.

{Source: Citizen}

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