BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)-Over 300 households who encroached on Soche Hill in Blantyre risk having their homes demolished after the High Court gave a node to the City Council to move them out.
The Council has been entangled in a five-year legal battle with the encroachers after they dragged the council to court, stopping the city assembly from relocating them.
Spokesperson Anthony Kasunda said the illegal settlers have 60 days from January 18th to vacate the area.
“The notice is not only to illegal settlers in Soche Hill but also to those in Mpingwe Hill and Ndirande Hill. At the time when we wanted to move these people out of these areas they obtained a court injunction but now the court has given us powers to move them.
“So we are saying since they used a lot of materials like iron sheets and bricks let them demolish their structures by themselves within these 60 days or we will come in with a bulldozer,” warned Kasunda.
He said the council will only give plots to 65 households in South Lunzu (Machinjiri) to the settlers who were on the protected sites five years ago.
“When we wanted to move them five years ago, they were about 65 households but the number has grown to 300.
So the court has ordered us to make sure we allocate land to these since we had already offered to do so; it will be up to the council to extend the offer to the rest,” he said.