Displaced foreigners who lived at the inner-city building that caught fire and claimed the lives of more than 70 people fear deportation to the extent that they don't want to look for their loved ones who could be dead or in hospital.
On Monday, Malawian national Fatima Banda, 20, sat on a street corner near where their building caught fire. She returns every day to what was their home until last Thursday, hoping to find her sister, Rejoice, 23, and brother Emmanuel, 30, whom she last saw when the building burnt down.
He said he didn't feel comfortable going to any of the shelters offered by the City of Johannesburg because he had heard that displaced South Africans at the shelters were ill-treating foreign nationals. Displaced foreign nationals say they always encourage each other to stay as a group at all times to avoid being victimised by police on the streets.
Displaced residents of the Usindiso building tried to gain access to the structure on Monday, to collect valuables and documentation inside.Alfonso Nqunjana /News24Nabeelah Mia, the head of the penal reform programme at Lawyers for Human Rights, said many of the fire survivors had lost everything.
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