Hundreds of displaced
Kayamandi residents have started rebuilding after their homes were burnt down
on Monday afternoon in Kayamandi Township in Stellenbosch.
Eyewitness Mvuyisi
Ntantala said the fire started in a locked house while its owners were at work
at the time.
“I thought that
someone was burning some papers, since it’s a regular thing in this area, so I
went back to my house, but [then] I noticed that the smoke was getting stronger
… That’s when I started calling others,” said Ntantala.
Ntantala lost all his
belongings in the fire including his identity document and his matric
certificate.
“The fire spread
rapidly in different areas while we were still trying to fight it,” explained
Ntantala.
Most residents were
at work when the fire broke in their homes.
Residents from both
Snake Valley and Zone O helped to fight the fire using buckets, but most
residents were watching the fire carefully to avoid the repeat of 2013 when
people thought that the fire was too small to spread but it ended up destroying
hundreds of home and leaving thousands homeless at Zone O.
This time residents
took their frustration out on the firefighters, throwing stones at them for
arriving late. Residents say they phoned for help before the fire had spread.
The fire, which
started around 3pm, was extinguished at 7pm.
Portia Jansen, Community
Development Coordinator at Stellenbosch Municipality, “There are at least 250
people who gave their names as heads of the houses [that were destroyed], but
we will still need to verify it.”
Since February, at
least two people have died in fires around Kayamandi. Fires are common in
Enkanini, an informal settlement in Kayamandi that does not have electricity.
