More than 1,000 residents of the McCarthy Land informal settlement in Uitenhage say living in squalor is nothing compared to the embarrassment they face each morning as they empty their bucket toilets next to their homes.
On Tuesday, about 100 residents embarked on a second day of housing and service delivery protests, calling for the removal of Ward 48 councillor Tyrone Adams who, they said, has ignored their pleas for housing, water and sanitation.
In August 2015, about 200 families started dividing up land which they said was allocated by the municipality for the development of RDP houses almost two decades ago.
The community has since expanded, with hundreds of people crammed into a section of cleared bush.
The shacks are surrounded by mud that is sometimes occupied by pigs and cows, animal and human waste dotted around the settlement.
Community representative Hugh Reece Williams said conditions were dehumanising.
“At night, women and children can’t go outside to relieve themselves because of the crime in the area, so they are forced to use the toilet indoors,” he said.
“They might be forced to sleep alongside the waste until they can throw it out. Imagine the diseases.”
Adams said he had been advocating for services for the area with municipal housing officials but, as a result of an eviction order granted in 2015, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality would not be able to develop the land as it had been occupied illegally.
“There is nothing the municipality can do until the eviction notice is rescinded,” he said.
“The conditions are terrible. You have to see it to believe it.”