Survivors feel abandoned two years

Started soot, withdrawn and abandoned remains of the shameful building in Central Johannesburg are 76 people who died here in a devastating fire two years ago.

At one time, the office block building in the 1950s in the Marshaltown district was abandoned, and then took several hundred people who desperately need the house.

One of them was Mustache Tshabala, who shook his head in distrust when he remembered how he survived the flames in late August.

“The fire seemed to be out of nowhere,” the BBC melancholic voice BBC, bizarre, from the years of smoking cigarettes.

Mr. Tshabala slept on the third floor of the five-story building, where he shared a place with his then girl and brother.

Waking up with flames, they managed to avoid, closing with wet blankets and running into the darkness before the exit.

“When we managed others, they were injured because when they fell, they couldn’t return. People ran over them. I thank God that we came out without any injuries.”

The tragedy shocked the nation and emphasized the deep inequalities of housing in the richest city of Africa, the inequalities that the authorities promised to apply.

Visiting a few hours after Blaza, President Kirill Ramaphos called it “calling for waking up to start resolving the situation with housing in the inner city.”

“We need to find effective ways to resolve the issue of housing,” he said.

But two years Mr. Tabalala and many others have not yet found a permanent home.

Initially, he was moved to Rosetville, 5 km (three miles) south of Marshaltown, but he says he was gone because he could not find work there.

He then tried the Denver Industrial neighborhood, 6 km east of the Allydis building, where other survivors were located – but he says that frequent shots made him leave.

At the moment when he lives in the shadow of his former house, where other former residents of the Allydis building put houses in an informal settlement known as Emaxhoseni.

Made of corrugated iron and wood, the structures are tightly packed – and several meters, some people even installed improvised tents on the wall of the building.

The street is dirty and residents tell us that drainage is bad. During the summer, the rains are flooded and filled with waste.

But for Mr. Thabala, who is currently working on a nearby construction site, life is worth here: “I returned because at least we are working here. Other places in which we have been accepted, we cannot find a job.”

He accuses the authorities of not doing enough to support those who survived with a fire: “Nobody wants to know where people from this tragedy live.”

Some of the survivors remained in a camp created for them in Denver – though it does not mean that they are happy.

“It’s not safe,” says BBC 29-year-old Biela.

Children play between temporary corrugated iron shelters, where women also lead underwear when we visit. There are only a few dozen portable toilets and 12 cranes for 800 people living here.

Ms. Biela, who works as a volunteer of the police, explains how she was shot at the beginning of this year when she was sleeping in her home.

“I heard the shots. Then the bullet hit me. I don’t know who shot me, but some guys fought on the street,” she says, fighting for tears.

The bullet, which passed through the wall and hit her, still fell into her hips. Doctors told her that the attempt to remove it would lead to more harm.

She covered the holes in the bullet left in the wall with a painting ribbon: “Sometimes, when I see holes in the bullet, I cry. I cry, because I didn’t expect it to happen to me in my life. I cried a lot.”

Ms Biela will desperately leave the camp, but cannot afford private rent, as her volunteer role pays her very little.

She wants the authorities to relocate her because she was told that the camp was only a temporary decision, but for two years she has no idea when and when it goes away.

“If the government moved us in six months, as they promised us, I would not blame them. But I blame them because two years have passed.

“Now, when it’s cold, I can’t go to work because my early hurts. I have to buy painkillers every day. I have my feet sore, I can’t stand long and walk.”

Due to security problems, she sent her three-year-old daughter, who was with her on the night to live with her grandmother in the province of Kwazul-Natal.

“I am very afraid. They promised us that they were going to put the gate at the camp, but there is no gate. Who can come here.”

The residents of the camp say three people have been killed since their arrival in Denver: one stabbed, the other beaten to death and a third shot.

The BBC contacted the mayor’s office to ask why the survivors had not been displaced for two years but did not answer the question.

Novo probe, lawyer and executive director of the Institute of Socio-Economic Rights of South Africa (SERI), a human rights organization based in Johannesburg, states that it was a struggle to pull people out of the so-called temporary housing.

She explains that, according to national housing policy, the state should find permanent housing for those who are evicted or the victims of the catastrophe if only they cannot accommodate themselves.

“In general, this does not happen. Without any available premises that people can move, and without any plan to provide the state, it is unlikely that people leave their temporary housing,” she says BBC.

It seems that in the center of Johannesburg there are many abandoned buildings that could provide permanent houses, but developers interested in refurbishing, pay a rent outside many.

“At the moment when you bring to the private market, there is no place for the poor,” says the housing lawyer.

There is a certain hope for improvement ahead.

In November South Africa, held by the G8 summit, Ramaphos ordered that Johannesburg be cleaned inside the meeting.

It was in March – and one of the centers was to be destroyed by the city’s buildings.

In one of the city departments, Mashaltown’s document was recognized as one of the areas that will benefit from investments to ensure “more pure streets, safer buildings and updated economic confidence.”

Johannesburg will become “a place where the stability, innovation and potential in Africa will be full for the world.”

But it seems that little happened, and Mrs. probe says that strong changes will take time.

“The G20 is in just two months. There is unlikely to be done a lot at this time, but we hope the president’s commitment to improve the domestic city survives the G20 and guarantees that there is worthy housing for the poor and that we have no other USindiso,” she says.

In response to a question about why the area was not restored, the mayor said the BBC that the project would continue after the G20 meeting.

Meanwhile, many former residents of the USindiso building remain in a suspended state.

“I don’t see it change,” Mr. sighs.

“If people still live like that,” he says, pointing to homeless people in tents, “I don’t see any changes. I don’t know what’s going on with our government.”