Land invaders will attempt to hit several areas around Cape Town simultaneously in an attempt to spread police officials too thin, the City of Cape Town’s JP Smith told News24.

Smith said the city was expecting further land grabs and crime intelligence suggested that invaders would try to target open plots of land in Khayelitsha, Manenberg and Gugulethu.

This comes after the Economic Freedom Fighters’ Nazier Paulsen and Bernard Joseph, along with other EFF members and Khayelitsha locals, invaded a plot of land near Nolungile railway station in Site C.

By Wednesday morning, about 2 000 people were on the land in Khayelitsha and had begun erecting structures.

But Smith, the city’s Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, said the structures were being dismantled in a joint operation by public order policing, the City of Cape Town, metro police, and South African police officials.

Third day of land grabs as the squatters stand off with police officials in Khayelitsha. It’s about to go down pic.twitter.com/i5zRQ0q97E Anele Mfazwe (@mfazwe) April 8, 2015

Smith also said that the city had laid charges against Paulsen and Joseph and that he would be notifying the speakers of Parliament and the Western Cape legislature of their actions as the EFF duo could be in breach of the code of conduct for national parliamentary representatives.

Land grabs in Bishopscourt

Attempts by News24 to get comment from Paulsen were unsuccessful.

Paulsen told News24 on Tuesday that they would take their land grab plans to Cape Town’s more affluent areas, such as Camps Bay and Bishopscourt.

Reports said that Josephs and Paulsen had led the occupation, but the party’s Godrich Gardee said the EFF merely supported community members in occupying vacant land.

“We don’t say ‘hey, there’s land we want to occupy’,” Gardee said

Smoke coming from area occupied in #Khayelitsha. Heavy police presence. I fear violence as some youth carrying stones pic.twitter.com/oCRqAZny2M Axolile Notywala (@Xila_Notywala) April 8, 2015

Meanwhile, Denel said it had been awarded an urgent interdict to prevent further invasions on the land which it owns.

The arms company’s Vuyelwa Qinga said it was in negotiations with the City of Cape Town and another private party over how to use the land in future.

But neither Qinga nor Smith would say what the plans were. News24