Tommy Trenchard/Panos Pictures

Teddy bears lie on the bed of community leader Shiela Madikane in Ahmed Kathrada House, an abandoned nursing home in inner city Cape Town now being occupied by several hundred families. Madikane was among the initial group of activists who first moved into the derelict building five years ago.

Since 2017, the Reclaim the City movement has been supporting the occupation of various abandoned buildings in central Cape Town in order to protest against gentrification and the lack of affordable housing near the city centre, and to provide a refuge for those being evicted from their homes. During the apartheid era non-white residents were forcibly removed from much of central Cape Town. Nearly three decades later the city remains chronically divided along ethnic and socio-economic lines, while South Africa remains the world's most unequal country, according to the World Bank.