Ilinge Resettlement Camps

During the mid-1960s, the apartheid state engineered forced removals of people to the Bantustans (8 'Homeland' states). The state's coercive regime of relocation led to the establishment of resettlement camps that were full of poverty and human suffering. Three large rural resettlement areas that were established in the Ciskei on land that was owned by the South African Native Trust (SANT) were Sada, Dimbaza and Ilinge. In 1965, Ilinge was established on the Welcome Valley farm on the Glen Grey District. This rural location was ideal for the state to control movement of people as entry to and exit from the townships were tightly policed. Initially the South African Department of Bantu Administration and Development (BAD) managed Sada and Ilinge. Initial houses were built out of wood. People collected water from communal taps and from a nearby dam. They were initially given rations of maize, mealie-meal and beans – a diet that gave rise to a disease they called Tsatsatsa.

In 1967, a building programme commenced. Ilinge was a "dumping ground" beyond mountains for people from farms and areas where they held no title to property like Cathcart, Uitenhage, Cookhouse, Cape Town, De Aar, Jamestown. The area was characterised by almost non-existent work opportunities but also by low wages for those who managed to get work. Men were employed to build houses, grade roads and dig pit latrines and water furrows and women were paid to dig holes to plant trees. The creation of local wage labor was linked to administrators' attempts to foster a rent-paying culture. Ilinge was also a good source of cheap labour for contractors who would come from the Western Cape and other areas to collect labour from the local Administration Office. 

By 1969, approximately 40 ex-political prisoners and their families were banished to Ilinge. In 1973, the population of the rural township had increased to 12000. The size of the resettlement camps expanded rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s. In the early 1970s, the Ciskei regime took over administration for the townships and a number of ex-political prisoners became clerks, foremen and other officials. Many youths were also sent into Lesotho for military training.