IT was a tense Easter Monday for one Cape Town community when police clashed with residents trying to build new shacks

Three vans full of South African Police Service officers and several car-loads of metro police and the city's anti-land invasion officers faced-off against about 200 residents from Makhaza, Khayelitsha, yesterday.

The residents had earlier taken over a vacant piece of land and demarcated plots, saying the shacks and backyards where they lived were too full.

Makhaza shot to prominence last year when its residents, and the ANC Youth League protested against the "open air" toilets erected for residents by the City of Cape Town without walls.

"We need to build shacks here but the law enforcement people are taking us out. Why are they doing this? Our children are dying here in these overcrowded conditions," an irate Masixole Kegama said.

Another resident, Mkhusela Baartman, said many people had recently lost their jobs and could no longer afford to rent rooms.

"We really don't know what to do or where to go. We are residents of Makhaza and we need a place to stay," Baartman said.

Anti-land invasion unit officer Piet van Wyk said: "We are here to protect the city's land. People have invaded illegally. We don't need a court order to remove their pegs."

By late yesterday, the police, city officials and representatives of the people were locked in a meeting. But other residents said they would erect their shacks at night.