Usindiso building survivors march in Joburg
Fire victims decry their poor living conditions
Survivors of inferno that killed 77 people in the Usindiso building on August 31 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 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. “I am now living in a hijacked building, forced to pay R1,500 rent.”
Mametlwe Sebei, the campaign coordinator, said the protest was over a “lack of jusan tice 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.”
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 the “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 that they had been unaware of the march.