Cape Town – Three of the 11 residents of informal settlements to perish in four fires at the weekend were allegedly murdered.
The former partner of a mother who died with her 12-year-old daughter and her current partner in a shack fire in Kosovo informal settlement on Saturday is due to appear in the Athlone Magistrate’s Court on Monday on charges of murder.
Police spokesperson Noloyiso Rwexana said the 38-year-old suspect “handed himself to the police” shortly after the incident. The mother Simbongile Gxabagxaba, 29, was sleeping with her partner, known only as Isaac, their daughter Simbonile, 12, and son Simamkele, 14, when the fire started.
Simamkele survived the fire and told how he managed to escape the blaze.
He said it was about 2am when he noticed that the house was on fire.
He jumped up from his bed and left the burning house.
“It was too late when I woke up and there was nothing I could have done to save anyone; the fire was already too much and I was feeling very hot,” said Simamkele.
He said he lost all his clothing and school books in the fire and would not be going to school until his immediate family could afford to replace them.
Simamkele said he had not yet received counselling.
His uncle Bathandwa Gxabagxaba, 32, said the suspect was alleged to have set the house on fire using a car tyre and petrol “because he was jealous”.
Bathandwa said it was good that the suspect had handed himself over to police so that the law could take its course.
In Citrusdal, about 160km north of Cape Town, a fire razed 22 shacks on Monday morning, displacing about 100 people. One man died in the fire, and his family has yet to be informed.
The cause of the fire was unknown.
Rural and Farmworkers Development Organisation chairperson Billy Claasen said on Sunday that ward councillor Raymond Pretorius was alleged to have been unsympathetic to a woman who had lost everything in the fire, whereupon she hit him.
The councillor was escorted from the area by police, Claasen said.
Pretorius would not comment on the allegation Sunday, saying only that the woman spat in his face.
A family of three perished in a blaze on Saturday in Imizamo Yethu informal settlement in Hout Bay.
The City’s Disaster Risk Management spokesperson Charlotte Powell said 3500 structures had been destroyed, displacing 15000 residents.
A survivor, Ntombizo Dulani, said her nephew Siyabongwe Nceza, 33, his wife Zukanye Nceza, 27, and their two-year-old son Ayabulela whose third birthday would have been on April 2, had died in the fire.
“I received the call from his (Siyabongwe‘s) cousin that there was a fire and his shack was also on fire.
“I ran out without shoes in the direction of their house, but when we got there the flames were already very high,” said Dulani.
She said they tried to call out for both parents, hoping they could rescue the child, but there was no response or anything anyone could do.
She said the shack facing the Nceza’s caught fire first and this made it almost impossible to leave as the locked iron gate in front of their door became too hot to touch.
At the highest part of the settlement, survivor Mabel Nyama, 40, said she barely escaped with her two-year-old son. She was only able to grab some clothing and a few other valuables before the blaze destroyed her home, she said.
They were far from where donations were being distributed, she added, but could not leave their remaining property for fear it would be burnt, too.
Fire and Rescue spokesperson Theo Layne said his department responded to an informal settlement fire at Pleasant Street in Wesbank late on Saturday where three shacks were burnt, resulting in the death of four people.
He said the cause of the fire was unknown and was being investigated.
Further details were not available.