“When the bloodshed happens to Abahlali, they don’t care” was the sentiment shared by one activist but echoed by many marching on City Hall in Durban, South Africa, last month.

Members of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a South African political movement by and for shack dwellers, along with allied community organizations and trade unions, had gathered to protest the assassinations of local housing activists.

Amid ongoing debates around land reform, this movement of shack dwellers hit the streets to stake out their place while emphatically affirming that their lives do indeed matter.

Abahlali asserts that since 2009, at least 16 members, including those in leadership positions, have been gunned down, often in their homes.

In May, S’fiso Ngcobo, chair of the eKukhayeni branch, died after being shot seven times in his home. In 2014, another local chairperson, Thuli Ndlovu, was shot dead in her home with her one-year-old child, Freedom, also in the home. That same year 17-year-old Nqobile Nzuza was shot dead in the back during a protest.

Against this backdrop a high-ranking member of Abahlali explained that they have had to become experts in planning and arranging funerals on a shoestring budget.

Abahlali points the finger at three chief sources of this violence, intimidation, and murder: the police, specifically the notorious Anti-Land Invasion Unit; hired gunmen; and private security companies.

In what is often referred to as the most unequal society in the world, many people arrive in cities in search of employment or as the result of land disputes at home. Once in living in urban and peri-urban shack communities, these individuals face a lack of services, lack of jobs, and a lack of land tenure, often with violent consequences.

An activist from the movement’s Women’s League decried that “they demolish our shacks and afterward we have no place to sleep. When the security forces arrive to demolish [our shacks] they also shoot. People are hurt and children are hurt.”

Secretary-General Thapelo Mohapi explains that many of their members have been removed from their shacks and placed in “transit camps,” presumably with the aim of finding them a house. Designed for short-term housing, many stay in these spaces for years, enduring insufficient conditions in terms of weathering, sanitation, and even privacy.

In some cases, after years of living in these communities, evictions take place without the evicted being provided a house. This is ostensibly done in order to make room for others from informal settlements. In this context, Abahlali has emerged as resistance to the criminalization of poverty and gross inequity.

Mohapi also noted that comments were made by officials in KwaZulu-Natal to “remove all these mPondo people.” This suggests a xenophobic pulse in reaction to an organization that emphasizes common humanity. Listed in Abahlali’s memorandum of demands is a call to end discrimination against isiXhosa-speaking peoples as well as people “from other countries.”

Emerging from hiding for the march and receiving a cheerful response, founding president S’bu Zikode called out to the crowd that “a person is a person wherever and whenever they may find themself.”

The organization has an international membership and a partner group, the Congolese Solidarity Campaign, which was also present at the march. Their work, ethic, and membership belies the notion that the poorest are inherently the most ignorant or hateful, that they are the ones to be blamed for outbursts of xenophobic violence.

Organizing across geographic, cultural, and national lines, the marchers were disciplined and vibrant in their activism, toy-toying through central Durban while dropping to the ground after organizers heralded “phansi,” or “down” in isiZulu. Though the marchers were peaceful, they were accompanied by heavily armed riot police while a drone circled the skies above.

When Zikode presented Abahlali’s list of demands to Tefo Mpete, a representative from the police services, outside the doors of City Hall, tensions escalated as leadership demanded to meet with city officials. However, spirits quickly calmed and the crowd returned to song in solidarity.

Recently KwaZulu-Natal has faced a barrage of political assassinations including of (and by) members of the governing African National Congress. However, very little has been done to provide visibility and even less to carry out justice for slain activists.

Abahlali singles out the ANC’s governance as the driving factor behind the state violence they continue to face; the carnage is not contained to internal ANC faction fighting. Moreover, Abahlali charges that these actions are often preceded by public threats while the murders take place with impunity.

Abahlali marched hoping to change this, to affirm their humanity and their place, and to reject notions that their lives don’t matter. Onlookers could not help but face this frustration as marchers collectively and directly told off various local and national political figures, rejecting a government that views them not as citizens but as a problem.

Abahlali’s march earlier this month was an assertion of the humanity of those not only being forgotten but actively erased.