It was an emotional crowd that gathered in the shade of the tree outside Cassel’s Funeral Services in Albany Road, Makhanda, last Friday. A week earlier a teenager had been raped less than 500 metres away.
The group of mostly women from the local community were joined by members of the national anti-gender based violence initiative, Women for Change, in their march to the derelict Albany Lounge.
Leanne Cook, a former Makhanda resident, said she was representing Women for Change.
“That building has been run down for many, many years,” Cook said. “There have been many incidents there over the past two years. Someone was also murdered there. Now we are marching because we want them to break down that building.
“We’re marching for street lights, we’re marching for more police visibility in our area, we are marching for safety because we are not safe anymore in this area,” Cook said.
Outside the broken building in the baking sun, litter piled high in front of them and sewage running down the road behind them, women went forward to speak about their distress and outrage at being unsafe in their own neighbourhood.
Several rape survivors gave moving accounts of their journeys to recovery.
An emotional Lorinda May addressed the crowd. She is the mother of Myrodine May, whose hacked and beaten body was found in a shallow grave in the bushes in Makhanda on October 12, 2023, a day after she was reported missing. To date, no one has stood trial for the particularly brutal attack on the 28-year-old Ghost Town resident.
Provincial and national leadership of the Patriotic Alliance had joined community members as they set off along Albany Road and later PA chief whip in the national Assembly Marlon Daniels, who is originally from Makhanda, addressed the gathering.
He spoke with disgust of the decay his former hometown had been allowed to descend into and the need for “unity for purpose”.
“No matter who you vote for, no matter the colour of your skin and no matter who you support politically, let us unite for the purpose of standing up for what is right,” Daniels said.
Earlier, community leader Debra Jass, had searing words for local authorities.
Jass described her interactions with Makana Municipality, and the police.
Reporting on her meeting with Makhanda Police Station commander Colonel Mbulelo Pika following last week’s incident, she said, “I said to the police commander: ‘You say visible policing: where are you?!’
“The Station commander told me only one van is operational. All the others are in for repairs because of the potholes.
“I told him, sir, according to our constitution, each person has the right to feel safe and to be protected,” Jass continued. “It’s a wicked shame that [local security companies] Hi-Tec, Smhart and All-Tec must keep us safe at night. It means we as a community must keep ourselves safe.
“We as the community of [Makhanda] say enough is enough!
“We’ve been to the municipality to complain about the street lights – there are no street lights. Where I stay, for 10 years there have been no lights. They feel nothing for us!” Jass said.
