GroundUp reports that Kumba Iron Ore is demanding more than R1.6 million from a group of residents of the Northern Cape town of Dingleton after a battle over asbestos.  

Kumba says the residents disrupted the process of rehabilitation of a site near a railway where blue asbestos was spilled years ago.  The company needs to rehabilitate the site in order to expand its Sishen iron ore mine near Dingleton.  Last September, some of the Dingleton residents, accompanied by the police, went to the site of the work and voiced their anger that rehabilitation was being carried out while they were still living in the town.  Kumba was then granted an interdict preventing the residents from further interfering with the rehabilitation.  Kumba is also relocating the entire town of Dingleton.  Only 25 families remain and are refusing to move on Kumba’s terms.  One resident believes that Kumba’s demand for R1.6 million is an attempt to force the residents to move from the town.

• Read this report by Ashleigh Furlong in full at GroundUp

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