Johannesburg - A fight between two drunk young men has destroyed 30 shacks, after one of the men tried to set the other alight with petrol in his shack.
Rachel Patina, a resident of the Msawawa informal settlement near Kya Sand in Randburg, wept on Sunday when she was told of how her one-year-old son nearly died in the fire. She was one of 65 people affected.
When the blaze started around 2am, Patina heard screams from community members calling for people to get out. When she looked through small holes in the shack, she saw a ball of fire moving towards her shack.
In desperation she looked for the key to unlock the door, but could not remember where she had put it. Neighbours heard her screams for help and ran to her aid.
“Community members managed to open a small space at the back of the shack and we were able to escape through it.
“But my child cried the whole night because of the cold. I don’t have anything to eat or any clothes at the moment, but I am just grateful to be alive,” said Patina, a Zimbabwean who has been living in Msawawa for the past seven years, surviving on piece jobs in nearby suburbs.
“Right now I am not working, I always look for domestic work, sometimes I get some for a few months.
Right now I have lost my passport and it will be hard for me to get another job,” she said.
Another woman with a young baby, Eunice Mbatha said they didn’t know what they were going to feed the children. “We are unemployed, so the little food we bought from child grants has been burnt. These children have not eaten the whole day,” she said.
Mbatha is also worried that her daughter, Zanele, 23, who has been hunting for a job, will miss opportunities.
“Her matric certificate and ID book were burnt – we could not save anything, the fire was too strong. The councillors were here in the morning. We hope they can help us.,” she said
In the afternoon, a group of men with hammers started to rebuild their shacks. A ward councillor, Matome Mafokwane, said a tent had been erected to house residents until they get their lives back on track.
The Star