Hundreds of people attended the memorial service on Saturday for five people who died in a fire in Shaka’s Head.
About 500 residents of Shaka’s Head, near KwaDukuza, gathered on Saturday for a memorial service honouring five people who died in a fire on 28 February.
The fire started in the early hours that Saturday, destroying a shack and killing its occupants: Asamkele Somtsewu, 19; her one-year-old twins, Sokhula and Solulela; Sonwabise Noyila, 14; and Amile Menemane, 3.
Nombuso Noyila, Sonwabise’s aunt, told GroundUp before the memorial service, “We’re still all in shock. We still find it hard to even speak about it.”
“[Sonwabise] was always a happy child. I will miss him a lot.”
Noyila said she was staying on the other side of Shaka’s head when someone woke her just before 5am to alert her to the fire. When she arrived at the burning shack, residents were trying to extinguish it.
“We tried throwing buckets of water onto the fire, but it only seemed to make it grow larger,” said Noyila.
Only one person, a two-year-old girl, survived the fire, said Noyila.
The shack had two rooms and a kitchen. Ongama Mcameni, Shaka’s Head resident and chair of the local Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM) branch, said that according to witnesses the fire had started in the kitchen.
ABM, a shack-dweller movement, has been assisting the community in opposing evictions since 2022.
The mother and her daughter, who live in an adjoining one-room shack, survived the fire. The Wave Church in Ballito has donated building materials for them to construct a new home.
In a statement, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) said that through the Provincial Disaster Management Centre psychological care would be provided for the families and a full disaster assessment conducted.
COGTA MEC Thulasizwe Buthalezi said the department would assist with the burials. Smoke detectors would be installed to prevent fires in future.
“The department fulfilled its promise, and all five bodies have been sent to the Eastern Cape, where they are originally from,” said Mncameni.
Somtsewu and her twins have been transported to Flagstaff, and Noyila and Menemane taken to Port Saint Johns.
Belongings of the fire victims were salvaged from the rubble and placed in black bags.
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