A violent battle between two small villages has led to hundreds of residents being displaced and scores of homes being burnt to the ground
Last weekend’s attack, in which three people were shot and injured, followed a similar one in February, in which 14 homes were torched.During a visit to KwaKhanyayo last week, City Press found Zitha all but deserted. Residents were said to have fled into the surrounding bush or to other villages. “I had six structures in my homestead, including a two-roomed flat, a one-room flat and four rondavels. We lost everything that we had built over many years.”
“I have never heard a machine gun before. It sounded like a thunderstorm and it came from the side of Zitha. They burnt down my home,” she said. Adding to the rancour are the people from another neighbourhood in the village, called Mgwedlweni, who are aiding those from Sicambeni in apparent revenge for the March 2018 killing of one of their own, who was allegedly killed by Zitha residents during an attack on Sicambeni.
“In March 2018, in a traditional court here in KwaKhanyayo Traditional Council, people from Zitha admitted to killing a man from Mgwedlweni who they thought was from Sicambeni, but the headman did not do anything about that. “We want to bring the fighting groups together and talk so that we can resolve the matter as soon as possible. The boundary is not going to happen because you cannot have a boundary within the same village of KwaKhanyayo.”
On Thursday, the KwaKhanyayo traditional leadership, Goya, and provincial MECs Weziwe Tikana and Fikile Xasa met to try to find a solution. Addressing villagers on Thursday afternoon, Xasa said they now had more insight into what was causing the fighting in the village.
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