A mother’s plea for help after losing her three children in KZN floods

A mother who lost her three children during flooding on Tuesday night has called on authorities to relocate families from the Gwala Street Transit Camp in Lamontville, Durban.

Lulama Dingiswayo, a mother who stayed with her husband and their seven children in a one-room tin house, was brought to the transit camp in 2021 after a flood in Umlazi, amid hope of being moved to a better place. 

She lost three of her children, two girls aged 5 and 16 and a 11-year-old boy. The 16-year-old was a pupil at Lamontville High School, while the two others were at Bantuvukani Primary.

“We want to be moved from the transit camp to a safe place, because this is the second flooding incident. In 2022, the place was flooded but no one died, but this time we have suffered a huge loss,” Dingiswayo said.

Lamontville Ward 74 councillor, Nolubabalo Mthembu-Zondi said the stream adjacent to the transit camp was blocked by debris and trees, resulting in water overflowing to the camp. Mthembu-Zondi was awaiting the City and the provincial government’s directive on the matter.

Heavy rains battered various parts of the province on Tuesday resulting in flooding and mudslides.

eThekwini Municipality mayor Cyril Xaba said about 280 families in Lamontville were affected by  heavy rains and will be relocated to temporary shelters as mop-up operations continue.

He added that the severe weather led to two adults, a 56-year-old female and a 60-year-old female, being washed away. Three children, aged 5, 11 and 16 from Lamontville also died. The sixth victim is from Chatsworth. 

The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) confirmed that the death toll had risen to seven and that teams had been deployed to conduct evacuations and assist affected communities.

Cogta MEC Rev Thulasizwe Buthelezi said the most affected areas were the N2 at Murchison, the Umbango Bridge, the Nkongweni Bridge at Margate, and Isipingo on the N2 south of Durban, amongst others.

“No area is safe now. We need to be careful in the way we do things. These floods keep damaging our infrastructure. It puts us behind in our programmes. It means we must brace ourselves for it,” Xaba said.

He urged amakhosi and izinduna, when they allocate land for people to live on, to consider areas that were resilient.

“The city doesn’t have land, yet we have over 500 informal settlements.”

Transport and Human Settlements MEC, Siboniso Duma sent condolences to the families who have lost their loved ones. Duma said there was a scarcity of land and the available areas were not suitable. 

Zanele Mtshali of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a shack dwellers’ movement in South Africa said “the government has blood on its hands".

“The government doesn’t care about people’s lives. Transit camps are unhealthy, in winter they become too cold and in summer, they become too hot and children develop heat rash. We have been complaining about this, but when you live in a shack, no one wants to listen to you. The government has blood on its hands. The ANC government has let us down for many years,” she said. 

gcwalisile.khanyile@inl.co.za