Candidate for ward council comes to rescue of fire victims

Cynthia Kungwana watched her home in that she has lived in for the past thirty years go up in flames. Hers was one of thirteen homes in Bengu Street Duncan Village that burnt down on Friday, leaving residents with nowhere to sleep that night.

Kungwana was sleeping peacefully when at about 7 am she heard someone shouting outside her door that the shack was on fire. It was already too late for her to take any of her belongings with her when she ran out.

“I woke my neighbors and we used buckets of water to stop the fire. Other people came to help too but the fire was too strong. When the firefighters arrived everything was already ablaze. My ID book, my clothes, my furniture and every important document I ever had burnt with the shack,” she said.

On Monday residents were trying to rebuild their shacks with some of the materials that were saved from the fire. Some residents told GroundUp this is the fourth time their homes have burnt down there. They believe this because their homes are so close to each other.

Nomphelo Makapela lives with her four children in a one room shack. She says she doesn’t know what she is going to do when schools reopen as her children’s uniforms, stationery and certificates were lost in the fire.

According to resident Ntomboxolo Xhaladiba the ward councillor, Ayanda Mapisa (ANC), came with Buffalo City Disaster Management, which handed out blankets and food parcels. But when residents told Mapisa they had nowhere to stay, said they would have stay in their relatives’ home.

“The councilor wrote all our names down. She said she was in a hurry and left without any promise of coming back or something better,” said Xhaladiba.

Bengu Street residents told GroundUp that it was a PAC councillor candidate, Luzuko Jabavu, who came to the rescue. He went to ask for assistance at the Spar supermarket where he was given food that lasted the residents the days. He then went to Wilsonia, a factory outside Amalinda, to ask for materials for rebuilding the shacks.

Jabavu said he told the councillor that the food that she gave the residents was not going to be sufficient for all the residents and their children. He told GroundUp that he gave some of the residents a place to stay in his backyard flat as they had nowhere to sleep with the blankets that they were given.

“When I asked the Disaster Management team if there is anything else they could do to help they said they can only give shelter and more when the people affected are a larger number than this one. That’s why I saw it fit to try and lend a helping hand. I have tried calling the councilor on numerous occasions so we could sit down and find a way forward for the homeless residents. Unfortunately, I have not found her,” said Jabavu.

GroundUp tried to contact councilor Mapisa but she was unavailable.

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