A year after Johannesburg building fire, survivors feel abandoned by city
Al Jazeera
Inquiry found authorities liable for neglect after 2023 blaze killed 76 people in dilapidated building in South Africa.
Johannesburg, South Africa – Sibongile Majavava sits outside her small tent shack at the Wembley stadium homeless shelter on the eastern outskirts of Johannesburg, her third temporary home since a deadly fire tore through the building she was living in a year ago.
The 34-year-old South African, her Tanzanian partner, Muhdi, 36 and their toddler have been hoping to get back on their feet since the August 2023 blaze in the dilapidated Usindiso building in the inner city killed 76 people and left hundreds homeless.
But a year later, surrounded by tents and makeshift dwellings in the former sports stadium-turned-shelter, the couple feel hopeless and abandoned by those they thought would help them.
“Life here is very hard,” said Majavava, who has no income and worries about keeping track of her three-year-old because of crime at the shelter. She needs to buy the child shoes, she said, because of used drug needles and other dangerous rubbish lying on the ground.
In 2018, the government installed container homes, water, electricity and standalone ablution units at Wembley, which also houses survivors of the 2017 Cape York building fire and people the city evicted from a derelict building called Fattis Mansions.
