Basarwa of Bodungwane rush to court over eviction threat
Innocent Selatlhwa | Monday July 20, 2026 06:00
The tiny Kgatleng rural village is situated about 35 kilometres south of Artesia through a dirt road. The residents, led by Ompegile Ratsie, Gofaone Leburu, Lorato Leburu and Bonolo Modise, have filed an urgent application through Ndzinge Makhamisa Law Group against the Kgatleng Land Board, the Bodungwane Farmlands Borehole Syndicate, seven members of the syndicate being Ramonaka Ruele, Solomon Ruele, Olefile Ruele, Otukile Ruele and Mphoentle Kwapa and the Deputy Sheriff, Lotty Manyepetsa, arguing that they are facing imminent eviction without a court order. In a founding affidavit before the Lobatse High Court’s Justice Ranier Busang, Ratsie argues that the threatened eviction violates their constitutional rights and ignores legal procedures that require every affected person to be heard before being removed from land they occupy. 'Our homes, livestock, fields, graves and livelihoods are all located at Bodungwane. We have nowhere else to go,' Ratsie states in the affidavit.
The residents say they have lived at Bodungwane for generations, tracing their occupation back to around 1901 when, according to the affidavit, Kgosi Isang Pilane allocated the land to their forefathers under customary law. According to Ratsie, the applicants are descendants of Basarwa families who have continuously occupied the area long before the establishment of the modern land administration system. He argues that the absence of formal Land Board allocation certificates does not make them illegal occupiers. Instead, he says their occupation predates the Land Boards Act and has continued uninterrupted for generations.
The dispute reached a boiling point in late April this year. Ratsie says an unidentified official from the Kgatleng Land Board arrived at Bodungwane accompanied by officials from Kgatleng District Council, the Water Utilities Corporation and members of the Botswana Police Service. According to the affidavit, the delegation verbally informed residents that they had only two weeks to vacate the land. The residents also say no written notice was issued on the matter, neither were they served with any court order authorising their removal. 'No written notice was ever served upon us. No eviction order was produced.
No Deputy Sheriff served any process on us,' Ratsie states. He argues that the officials' conduct left families living in fear of losing their homes at any moment. 'The threat of eviction remains real and imminent,' he says. The applicants insist they were never given an opportunity to explain why they should remain on the land. Instead, they say they were simply informed that they had to leave. One of the key pillars of their case is an earlier court matter involving the same land. According to the applicants, the Kgatleng Land Board previously acknowledged in court that it could not lawfully evict occupants from Bodungwane without first obtaining individual eviction orders against each person occupying the land.
Ratsie relies on a sworn affidavit by Kgatleng Land Board Secretary, Duly Otimile, in which the Land Board allegedly accepted that every occupier would have to be cited and given an opportunity to be heard before any eviction could lawfully take place. The applicants argue that this admission directly contradicts the recent verbal instruction ordering them to leave within two weeks. 'If the Land Board itself accepts that individual court orders are necessary, then the verbal eviction notice has no legal basis,' the applicants argue.
The residents further contend that they were never parties to earlier litigation concerning Bodungwane. According to the affidavit, previous proceedings were conducted between the Kgatleng Land Board and the Bodungwane Farmlands Borehole Syndicate. The applicants say none of the 168 residents was cited as a party, served with court papers or afforded an opportunity to place their version before the court. As a result, they argue that those judgments cannot be enforced against people who were never before the court. 'The orders were granted in proceedings to which we were not parties,' Ratsie says. 'We cannot be bound by judgments obtained in our absence,” they argue. The applicants also challenge suggestions that they are unlawful squatters.
They argue that many of the families have lived in the area all their lives, where they have built homes, raised livestock, cultivated fields and buried relatives. According to the affidavit, several generations have been born and raised at Bodungwane. The residents say forcing them to leave would not simply involve relocating houses. It would destroy livelihoods and sever deep cultural and family ties with the land. 'Our ancestors are buried there. Our children were born there. This is the only home we have ever known,' Ratsie states. The affidavit also highlights what the applicants describe as the devastating humanitarian consequences of an eviction. They say children would be forced to leave schools, elderly residents would lose access to services they rely on and families would be left homeless. The residents argue that any eviction carried out without proper legal processes would violate their constitutional rights to dignity, equality and administrative justice. Because of those concerns, they want the High Court to hear the matter urgently. They argue that once homes are demolished or families removed from the land, the damage cannot easily be undone even if they later succeed in court.
'The prejudice we stand to suffer cannot be adequately remedied by an award of damages,' Ratsie says. Amongst the orders sought, the applicants want the High Court to declare that previous court orders obtained by the Bodungwane Farmlands Borehole Syndicate do not authorise their eviction because they were never parties to those proceedings. They also seek an order declaring the verbal eviction notice unlawful and preventing the respondents from removing them unless fresh court proceedings are instituted against each affected resident.
The applicants further ask the court to interdict the respondents from demolishing houses, destroying property or interfering with their peaceful occupation of the land pending the final determination of the dispute. The case is expected to revive the long-running dispute over Bodungwane, where competing claims over land ownership and occupation have fuelled years of litigation. While the Borehole Syndicate has previously secured court orders relating to the land, the new applicants insist those judgments cannot automatically be extended to hundreds of residents who were never joined to the proceedings. For the Kgatleng Land Board, the case may also prove significant because the residents intend to rely on what they say are the Board's own previous admissions that individual eviction orders are required before any occupier can lawfully be removed. The matter is set for hearing on July 29, 2026 in Lobatse.
The High Court will now have to determine whether the 168 residents have established a case for urgent intervention and whether the threatened eviction can proceed in the absence of individual court orders against each occupier. Meanwhile efforts to get a comment from the syndicate's Olefile Ruele failed as he said they could not say anything until the matter is settled by courts.