The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says it is engaging different stakeholders and the government to get land so that they can provide temporary residential structures to victims of the floods in April and May in KwaZulu-Natal.
Close to 4 000 homes were destroyed by the floods in the province.
Due to difficulties in locating suitable land, just over 730 temporary residential units have been built as part of government contracts.
UNDP programme manager Bongani Matomela says, “We have also been working with the Red Cross to identify areas where we can provide temporary shelter to the community.”
“ We have identified few sites around the eThekwini area where we will be providing these temporal shelters in the form of Wendy houses and also to emphasise the point that these are temporal measures. The important thing is to make sure that government and other stakeholders make provision to make available structures that are going to be permanent for people to be accommodated.”
DA submits complaint to SAHRC
Earlier this month, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in KwaZulu-Natal said it has officially submitted a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), regarding what it calls a humanitarian crisis at community halls, where flood survivors are accommodated.
Last month, the party conducted oversight visits at some of these halls across eThekwini. It is said that about 3 800 families have been living in 82 community halls since the April floods.
Many of them are from informal settlements, that were badly hit by the floods. The DA’s provincial leader Francois Rodgers addressed the media in Durban.
“Some of the halls we visited had over 400 people sleeping in one room, that was men, women and children. The one particular hall we visited, one of the flood victims had just given birth in that particular hall. So, that really is a situation that shocked us. And we then wrote to the Human Rights Commission. I lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission giving the evidence. The Human Rights Commission has acknowledged receipt. “
Flood victims accommodated at a shelter express concern over their living conditions:
