They arrived in desperation, unable to find anything better, safer or cheaper in a city with a severe shortage of affordable housing.
They settled in a trash-choked building owned and neglected by the city of Johannesburg, paying “rent” to criminals.
Flames devoured a structure that overcrowding, security gates, mounds of garbage and flimsy subdividing had turned into a death trap.
Some victims leaped from upper windows of the five-story building rather than burn to death.
And these urban squatter camps are routinely “hijacked,” residents say, by organized groups demanding payment.
Persons:
Mgcini
Locations:
Johannesburg, South