In response to the violent evictions of shack dwellers in the eThekwini Municipality in South Africa on March 27, 29, 31 and 2 April 2020, amid the COVID-19 lockdown, scholars and activists Arundhati Roy, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, Vijay Prashad, and Yanis Varoufakis spoke out to condemn the evictions and stand in solidarity with the shack dwellers:
News comes to us that as the global pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 enters South Africa, the government has decided to intensify the process of mass evictions of shack-dwellers. The poorest of the poor in South Africa are being removed from their homes and thrown into the streets, shelterless and defenseless against the virus.
We stand with the shack-dwellers – and with the most important organization of shack-dwellers, namely Abahlali baseMjondolo – as they struggle against evictions and as they struggle to ensure that the dignity of all people is kept at the center of all policies, especially those that are now being developed to tackle the global pandemic.
