Scores of residents gathered at Nomzamo Community Hall on Saturday 20 May for a memorial service of a Mozambican family that died in a shack fire on Wednesday 10 May.
More than 60 shacks were destroyed during the incident and more than 100 people left homeless at Ethembeni informal settlement.
The deceased were identified as Nelson Makamo (29), Zinya Sithole (27) and Junior Makamo (2).
The service, which was attended by the community and church leaders, was organised by Sinikithemba, a non-profit organisation that works closely with the community by providing assistance, especially to needy families.
Sinikithemba organiser Thembeka Soldat said they saw the need to organise a memorial service for the deceased to demonstrate Ubuntu. She stated that the intention was to unite the community.
“Whether they are coming from Mozambique, they are part of our community. We are all Africans.
“We need to love each other. What happened in 2008 (the outbreak of xenophobic violence) must not happen again. Let us unite and love one another,” said Soldat.
She stated that every individual in society has a role to play in building the nation.
Soldat emphasised that no one should be discriminated against or harassed because they come from another country.
“Let’s forget about the borders. Borders are just there to control. The truth is, we are all Africans,” she said.
She thanked all the community stakeholders that came on board to make the service a success.
Nelson’s older brother Osvaldo Makamo (31) said they were pleased with the support from the community.
He said they did not expect such service as they were from another country. “I still don’t believe what the organisation did for us. It is a great thing. It shows that we are loved and welcomed by the community,” said Osvaldo.
However, he said he was still traumatised by how his family died. Explaining how he heard about the incident Osvaldo said he was asleep when the fire started.
“I heard people shouting ‘fire-fire’ outside. When I went out, like everybody else to assist in extinguishing the flames, to my surprise, I discovered that the fire was at my brother’s shack. It started in the kitchen downstairs closer to the door.
“My brother had an upstairs shack. They were sleeping in the bedroom upstairs.
“But I suspect that they were trying to escape because his wife’ s body was just near the door. The child was on the couch just next to the door and my brother’s body was a few metres away from the door,” he explained.
He said all of them burned beyond recognition.
“When we tried to lift up my brother’s body his skull fell. All of them had no legs, arms or heads. They burned to ashes. The only part that was left to all of them was the abdomen,” he explained.
Osvaldo stated that they were waiting for the postmortem results before planning for the funeral.
He said the intentions were to bury them in Mozambique.
A proportional representation (PR) councillor in Ward 85 Unathi Lasiti urged people to leave a space between their shacks for emergency vehicles to go through.
He stressed that the community must resist building upstairs shacks in the informal settlements as they are more dangerous, especially during the shack fires.
However, he stated that the City is open to anyone who needs help in terms of counselling.
Lasiti stated that the City’s Disaster Risk Management Centre had provided food and blankets in an attempt to assist the shack fire victims.