Raging blaze leaves 30 CT families homeless

2010-12-22 07:24:05.0 | Unathi Obose – SowetanA 35-YEAR-OLD man burnt to death during a fire that destroyed 10 shacks in Cape Town’s Samora Machel informal settlement late on Monday.

The fire is thought to have started at a local meat stall and allegedly left 30 families homeless.

Resident Busiswa Joni, 19, said the fire started at a local meat stall and quickly spread to the shack behind it.

“We tried to extinguish the blaze using water and sand but could not because of the strong wind,” Joni said.

Media: Government blamed as fire razes 80 shacks

Side note: this was an Abahlali baseMjondolo statement, not an AEC statement.

December 08, 2010 Edition 2
Zara Nicholson – Cape Times

A DEVASTATING fire has razed about 80 shacks in QQ-Section in Site B, Khayelitsha.

Residents and community leaders said last night its cause was unknown.

Fire and Rescue spokesman Theo Layne said they were called out to the scene just before 7pm yesterday.

Solidarity: Urgent Press Statement on the Right to the City Campaign – 1 Day to go

Urgent Press Statement

The Right to the City Campaign

Count Down

10 June 2010

Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape, 21 days ago launched it’s campaign ‘the right to the city campaign’ today the world and South Africans are counting few days before the kick off of the 2010 FiFa World cup, also Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape is counting few hours before kick starting it’s campaign.

Part of the aim of the campaign is to build shacks outside Green Point soccer stadium at Cape Town, occupying governmental offices, invading open public spaces within the city and occupying unused hotels, flats and schools within the City.

Tomorrow, the 11^th June 2010 is the first day of our campaign, about 100 members of Abahlali baseMjondolo will meet at Cape Town next to Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) at Keizerngracht Street at 10:00 from there we will proceed to where our protest is going to take place.

Kennedy Road is Burning Again – The Fires Must Stop

8 July 2009, 3:44 a.m.
Emergency Press Statement from Abahlali baseKennedy

Kennedy Road is Burning Again – The Fires Must Stop, the Settlements Must be Electrified Immediately

Our settlement is burning again. More than a hundred shacks have been lost. It’s too early to say if anyone has been hurt or killed in this fire.

The cause of the fire was, again, a paraffin stove which means that, in reality, the cause of the fire was again the eThekwini Municipality’s inhumane refusal to provide electricity to shack dwellers or to allow us to access electricity on our own.

AbM: Fire Devastates the Kennedy Road Settlement – At Least One Hundred Homes Destroyed

16 June 2009

Press Statement from Abahlali baseKennedy

The Red Devil Must be Defeated

Today is the 16 June, Youth Day, the anniversary of the 1976 Soweto Uprising. In Johannesburg and Cape Town our comrades are struggling for the people to take this day back from the politicians.

Here at the Kennedy Road settlement we are burning, again. At about 1:30 last night a fire started after a paraffin stove was left unattended while a couple argued. Before it was put out around 100 shacks had burnt. At least 300 people have been left homeless. One woman has been very badly injured and has, only just now, been taken to hospital.

Media: Fire leaves thousands homeless

By Natasha Prince and Murray Williams
March 09 2009 at 03:25PM

Source: Cape Argus

Cape Town – The scene at Joe Slovo informal settlement was one of devastation on Monday after the south-easter turned a small fire there into a raging inferno that razed 400 shacks and left about 1 600 people homeless.

The fire started at about 2.00am on the corner of the N2 and Vanguard Drive.

Photos: fire and art on the pavement

Living on the pavement without electricity is tough. Fire is one of the most dangerous results of the lack of electricity. This fire on 3 January 2009 destroyed two shacks leaving two families homeless. We do not know how the fire started as both families were away for the New Years visiting relatives.

While fire makes life tough, art becomes a form of beautification and political expression.  Many of Symphony Way’s hokkies (shacks) have various elements of written word and art – all of which relate to their community’s struggle against oppression.

6 January, 2009 – Fire destroys one shack in Khayelitsha, kills an elderly couple

6 January, 2009 – Fire destroys one shack in Khayelitsha, kills an elderly couple. The cause of shack fires is lack of electricity and the refusal of government upgrading of the settlements.

Sekwanele! [Enough is Enough!]: Social Movement struggles for Land and Housing in Post-Apartheid South Africa

This article is published in the current issue of Left Turn magazine in the United States of America.

By Toussaint Losier

Amabhulu anyama
Asenzeli iworry
[The black capitalists]
[Are making us worry]
– Chorus of a contemporary protest song, sung in Xhosa

In the predawn hours of Saturday, September 13th, 2008, a devastating fire tore through the thousands of wood and zinc shacks that make up the Foreman Road informal settlement in Durban. Sparked by an unattended candle, the fire spread quickly and raged for hours.

With only one water tap serving nearly 8,000 tightly packed residents, there was little people could do but warn their neighbors and move to safety to watch their houses burn. It would take several hours to put out the fire. Among the smoldering debris, residents would later find the body of Thembelani Khweshube, 30, who had been asleep when his shack caught fire.

“I wish that somebody could save us from this misery,” lamented Funeka Nokhayingana to a local reporter from the Durban Mercury amidst the charred zinc and the damp ash. “I have lost everything in the fire – my identity document, my children’s birth certificates, uniforms and school books. It hurts me to raise my children in such conditions, but I don’t have a choice because I have nowhere else to go.”

Media: Deflt families vow not to move

Aziz Hartley
December 22 2008 at 10:40AM
Source: Cape Times

About 40 Delft families who were given formal houses “by mistake” after their temporary accommodation burnt down say they will defy any efforts to move them.