Unemployment, poverty and malnutrition have for years been at high levels in the bantustans and resettlement camps created as a result of the apartheid programme of relocation and the pass laws. The prolonged drought in South Africa has meant even greater deprivation for the people living in these greatly overpopulated areas.
Dr Allie Moosa, Professor of Paediatrics at King Edward VIII Hospital in Durban estimated that about 30,000 children, mainly Africans, die of malnutrition every year in South Africa, and predicted that this number would increase as a result of the drought. The South African Council of Churches' Director of Development, speaking of conditions in the resettlement camps, said that child mortality rates in the camps were 'staggering' and described the poverty among black people in South Africa as 'political poverty' created by apartheid policies (GN 14.4.83; CT 25.4.83; see also Removals and Apartheid, FOCUS Briefing Paper No. 5, July 1982).
- Overcrowding due to the systematic expulsion of different communities or segments of communities to specified areas has led to rapid deterioration of fertile farming land so that it is impossible to produce enough food for the inhabitants. The relocation of 50,000 people to three camps in the north of the Ciskei bantustan, at Zwelendinga, Thornhill and Sada, has completely devastated what was once prime agricultural land, and the camps are situated miles from any town or village where employment may be sought. Infant mortality rates due to undernourishment are high (Star 19.2.83).
- The people of Driefontein (see above) at present grow enough in a normal year not only to feed themselves but also to sell a surplus to neighbouring towns. The government's plans to move them to the KwaZulu and KaNgwane bantustans will, if implemented, further contribute to the conditions of overpopulation in these areas, reducing the camps' inhabitants to poverty and some to starvation (New Statesman 18.2.83).
- Inhabitants of the Onverwacht resettlement camp in the Orange Free State have suffered from epidemics and disease since the camp was established in 1979. Official figures reveal that over 500 people died of typhoid in that year, and the major cause of the more than 4,000 deaths at the camp so far has been malnutrition.
The majority of these were children under five. Unofficial estimates put the population of Onverwacht at 300,000, (officially it is 200,000) and it is constantly growing. In particular with the onset of the drought the growth accelerated as work ran out for increasing numbers of Africans on white farms. But the nearest employment available to people at Onverwacht is 65 km away at Bloemfontein, where women are forced to seek domestic work: most of the men are migrant workers in mines to the north (Star 4.5.83; ST 22.5.83).
- The majority of resettlement camps are in the bantustan areas which are already overpopulated and faring worst from the drought. In each of the Gazankulu, Transkei and Ciskei bantustans some 300,000 people are suffering from malnutrition, according to the South African Council of Churches' Director of Development, Rev Sol Jacob. Research conducted by authorities in the KwaZulu bantustan among people relocated there revealed that resettlement was threatening the stability of rural areas as people flowed in to compete for already meagre resources. A resettlement camp in KaNgwane was one of the first places in South Africa to be struck by cholera, which in the last few years has affected several parts of the country (New Statesman 18.2.83; ST 10.4.83; MS 24.5.83).
