Jo’burg building fire survivors march to mayor’s office

[Jabulile Mbatha]

Scores of people marched to the Johannesburg mayor’s office under the umbrella of the Marshalltown Fire Justice Campaign on Friday. Photo: Jabulile Mbatha

Scores of people, some of them survivors of the inferno that killed 77 people in the Usindiso building in August 2023, marched to the Johannesburg mayor’s office on Friday.

Marching under the umbrella of the Marshalltown Fire Justice Campaign, they said they were also marching for victims of fires in several other buildings and informal settlements in the area.

They held placards reading: “Decent affordable housing for fire survivors” and “eliminate housing backlogs with decent housing”.

Sihle Dube, who was marching, said he still gets shivers remembering the day he had to jump out of the burning Usindiso building from the second storey. He spent seven days in hospital after that, he said.

“I am now living in a hijacked building, forced to pay R1,500 rent,” said Dube.

Mametlwe Sebei, campaign coordinator, said the protest was over a “lack of justice for the fire victims” and the current living conditions of those displaced by the fire.

He said buildings “are in a complete state of neglect, dilapidation, and degradation”.

“We want to ensure free basic services such as water, electricity and sanitation, those services that in 1994 were said to be a constitutional right,” said Sebei.

The five-page memorandum of demands includes decent and affordable housing for victims of building fires; an end to “inhuman” temporary emergency accommodation for the Denver building fire victims, xenophobic scapegoating and the segregation of survivors based on nationality; and “brutal” forced evictions taking place in the city.

When the marchers reached Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda’s office they were informed he had left the building, but Premier Panyaza Lesufi’s office sent Puleng Chabane, deputy director of rapid response, to receive it. Mayoral spokesperson Mlimandlela Ndamase said no prior arrangement had been made and they had been unaware of the march.

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