30 years after submitting land claims, Bishopscourt’s previous residents return

CAPE TOWN - Previous residents of Bishopscourt in Cape Town are returning to  the land they were forcibly removed from, 30 years after submitting their land claims.  

Members of the community were forcibly removed due to the apartheid government’s Group Areas Act.  

After a successful land claim in 1995, 86 families have had their rights to the land restored and this past week, development began when a sod-turning event was held on Tuesday. 

Martha Thomas, a land claimant, reflected on how the forced evictions affected her life: “I was a teenager. I was between the ages of 16 and 17 when that happened. 

“I wasn't home that day, and I just started my nursing career and when that happened, my mother had to come and fetch me from the hospital to show me where are we about to live now.”  

Thomas said there were many obstacles that stood in the way of her homecoming.  

“I can tell you we’ve been bullied around by different parties for trying to return back to our homeland. After receiving our certificates that we can come back via a land claim, we had to go through all this processes, which was so unnecessary.”