The terrible fire that ravaged a squatted building in central Johannesburg on Thursday grew to 76 victims on Friday, the government announced, as bereaved families followed one another at the morgue to identify the bodies that can be.
“We have 76 dead, two people having died in hospital” from their injuries, Health Minister Joe Phaahla told reporters.
In front of the Soweto morgue, the director of forensic services Thembalethu Mpahlaza specified that “of all the bodies collected, we have only twelve identifiable by visual means”. For all the others “it will take a little time to finalize the DNA samples”.
In the early morning, while associations were distributing blankets and clothes to more than a hundred survivors gathered in a reception center, police dogs were still searching the rubble of the building in Johannesburg where some 200 families, between fourth-world South Africans and migrants, were trapped.
During the night of Wednesday to Thursday, many found themselves locked behind the locked gates aimed at preventing access to criminals, in this disreputable and dilapidated center of the South African economic capital, as well as to the police.
An investigation has been opened. But already, the tragedy is relaunching the debate on these disused and “hijacked” buildings, which fall under the control of slum landlords or mafia gangs collecting rent from poor families.
Opulent business district at the time of apartheid, the center of the former “city of gold” has a thousand buildings of this type, according to the city, disconnected from the electricity network and where people warm themselves, cook and light with gas or paraffin.
Visiting Thursday evening, President Cyril Ramaphosa promised to “address the housing issue” in city centers.
The height of the drama, the building belonged to the municipality and was even listed as a heritage site. Under apartheid, black South Africans went there to obtain their “passes”, these papers allowing them to access white areas to work there.
It was last used as a shelter for battered women but has been “overrun and hijacked” in recent years, according to the town hall.
This tragedy was unfortunately “predictable”, denounces Mervyn Cirota, municipal councilor in the opposition. “Many of these buildings are overcrowded. There are no toilets, water or electricity.”
South Africans call these buildings “hijacked” or “hijacked”. The police refuse to venture there without a compelling reason, these are lawless areas. Their population is heterogeneous, unemployed, families, convicts, illegal immigrants.
At the end of apartheid some thirty years ago, the wealthy white population deserted the center to take shelter behind the high walls and electric fences of houses in leafy and peaceful suburbs.
The black masses arriving from the countryside, in search of work, began to occupy the vacant buildings. Even today, the richest city in the country attracts those in search of a better life.
This economic exodus increases the pressure on housing in crisis. The country of nearly 60 million people lacks 3.7 million roofs, according to the Center for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa (CAHF).
In these buildings, “you are dealing with organized crime. These people know the laws and they have a network. crime.
The authorities occasionally carry out operations to evict their illegal inhabitants, often calling on armed private security agents nicknamed “Red Ants” renowned for their violence.
01/09/2023 18:17:45 – Johannesburg (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
