Legal team criticises COJ over Marshalltown fire survivors' living conditions
The High Court in Johannesburg has given the municipality three months to improve the living conditions of the Marshalltown fire victims.
Portable bathrooms and shacks constructed for Usindiso building fire victims in Denver, south of Johannesburg, on 16 November 2023. Victims were relocated from a shelter, where they had been seeking refuge since the blaze gutted the hijacked building in August, and killed close to 80 people.
JOHANNESBURG - The legal team representing the Marshalltown fire victims said it is unfair that the City of Joburg has subjected them to poor living conditions.
Over 200 people who were displaced when a fire ripped through a five-storey building in the inner city, killing over 70 people, have been housed on a piece of land where the city has built structures made of corrugated iron.
The High Court in Johannesburg has given the municipality three months to improve the living conditions of the Marshalltown fire victims.
READ: Deporting Marshalltown fire survivors not in interest of justice, says lawyer
Lawyers representing the Marshalltown fire victims say the city might resort to once again moving the survivors but this time to temporary RDP houses.
The legal team argues that while the victims stayed at a dilapidated and hijacked building, they still had access to electricity and some form of running water.
During a sitting of the commission of inquiry into the blaze Joburg Emergency Services officials said the residents used fire hoses mounted on the walls for drinking water.
The High Court in Johannesburg has ordered the city to install prepaid electricity meters and standpipes on the land within three months.