Fikile Ntshangase

Fikile Ntshangase was a South African environmental activist. She was a leading member of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation (MCEJO), which advocated and is taking legal action against the proposed expansion of an open-cast coal mine operated by Tendele Coal near Somkhele, situated near Hluhluwe–Imfolozi park, the oldest nature reserve in Africa. Ntshangase was shot and killed by four gunmen in her home on 22. October, 2020.
Environmental Activism.
Environmental Work.
Ntshangase opposed the expansion of a coal mine operated by Tendele Coal near Somkhele, in the KwaZulu-Natal province, near her home in Ophondweni. She was a leading member of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organisation, MCEJO, which fought expansion of the mine near the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve.
Death.
Some in the community, which had traditionally depended on herding and agriculture, had been campaigning to preserve the wilderness of the area, but other community members needed work from the mine and supported expansion, leading to rising tensions. In April, 19 bullets were shot at the home of another anti-mining activist, Tholakele Mthethwa.
Locals near the mine had been subject to intimidation and threats of violence in the months before Ntshangase's murder. Families that refused to be move from their ancestral lands were reportedly shot at. Around 6:30pm on 22 October 2020, according to local police, four men entered Ntshangase’s home in Ophondweni, KwaZulu-Natal and shot her dead a few meters away from her thirteen-year-old grandson and two of his friends (at ages eight and ten). She was 65 years old and had been cutting onions for dinner at the time.
Her death was part of a rising trend of murdered environmental activists, as a record number were killed around the world in 2019, according to a Global Witness report from July 2020. 
International response.
Her death has been condemned as a murder by multiple environmental and humanitarian organizations; for example, on October 27, 2020, environmental organization Groundwork sent a letter to various South African authorities requesting an immediate investigation into her death, which was supported by international network of environmental organizations Friends of the Earth. The Human Rights Watch has written a similar article.