Early in the morning of February 8 in Orange Farm (an informal settlement of 1.5 million people south of Johannesburg), 61 year-old Orange Farm Water Crisis Committee (OWCC) and Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) activist Emily Nengolo, was shotdead in her home by two unknown assailants in what appears to be a politically motivated attack. Over the last year, the OWCC has been actively and effectively involved in resisting water and electricity cut-offs and evictions in their community.

ORANGE FARM, 8 FEBRUARY - For the past year, Indymedia South Africa has been reporting extensively about the increasing repression against activists fighting GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution), the ANC neoliberal strategy. After being shot at by Johannesburg Mayor's security guard, 87 Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee activists were jailed for two weeks in April - the case is still pending in court. More than 200 Anti-Eviction Campaign activists across the Cape Flats have been arrested and detained since June - almost ten court cases are still pending against them. The presence of international delegates during the World Summit on Sustainable Development didn't stop the government: when the summit opened, 100 activists of the Landless Peoples' Movement were jailed for refusing to leave the site of a march, another 100 activists from the Soldiers' Forum (an Anti-Privatisation Forum affiliate) were detained for 'taking a train'. In order to market their 'home-grown' structural adjustment programme for Africa, NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development), Thabo Mbeki and his government had to hide and repress the growing dissent against the same neoliberal policies that have been tested in South Africa since 1996.

Early this morning in Orange Farm (an informal settlement of 1.5 million people South of Johannesburg), in what appears to be a politically motivated attack, 61 year-old APF and Orange Farm Water Crisis Committee (OWCC) activist Emily Nengolo, was shot dead in her home by two unknown assailants. According to family members who were present in the house at the time of the murder, two adult black males forced their way into Emily Nengolo’s house around 1am on Friday night shining flashlights into the darkened rooms. When they came upon Emily Nengolo they were reported to have said, “this is the one we are looking for