Cops battle to evict orphans
2009-11-26 14:20
Cape Town - About 400 residents of Atlantis, near Cape Town, burnt tyres and barred police from evicting people from an orphanage in the area on Thursday, said a community member.
"Community members are standing at the gate refusing police entry into the orphanage home," said Fiona Ranck.
"They believe that the orphanage belongs to the community," she said.
Ranck said about 40 policemen were trying to remove a family and 60 children with their belongings from the property.
Matilda and Ronald Koopman, who head the Ebenezer church, lived in the house for years with their six children.
In 2005 they started taking in orphans and abused children.
With the aid of Swiss funding, obtained by the Atlantis Forum, a new, bigger house was built on the property to accommodate the children.
Illegal
However, the orphanage was not registered and earlier this month the department of social services threatened to close it down because it was illegal.
It was when the Koopmans tried to get members of the community involved in the administration of the orphanage, that the forum claimed that the house was its property and took the matter to court, obtaining the eviction order, said Ranck.
Western Cape ANC organiser Mandla Nqwane said the standoff between police and the community started three days ago.
"The community is protesting [against] the removal of this family and they will not go away."
"They [community members] have been here for three days now, some of them go to their houses to eat and then return," he said
Lawyers for the Koopman family will lodge an urgent application to halt the eviction on Thursday afternoon.
- SAPA