The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) says it is engaging various stakeholders and the government to acquire land so they can provide temporary housing for victims of the April and May floods in KwaZulu-Natal.
Floods in the province destroyed about 4 thousand houses.
Due to difficulties in finding suitable land, just over 730 temporary housing units were built under government contracts.
UNDP donated food to flood victims in Durban’s Ntuzuma and Umlazi townships, including Wendy’s.
UNDP Program Manager Bongani Matamela says: “We are also working with the Red Cross to identify places where we can provide temporary shelter for the community.”
“We have identified a number of locations around the eThekwini area where we will provide these temporary shelters in the form of Wendy Houses and also to emphasize that these are temporary measures. It is important to ensure that the government and other stakeholders envisage the creation of structures that will be permanent to house people.”
DA files complaint with SHRC
Earlier this month, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in KwaZulu-Natal said it had formally lodged a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) about what it called a humanitarian crisis in community halls housing flood survivors.
Last month, the party conducted sight-seeing visits to some of these halls in eThekwini. It is said that after the April flood, about 3,800 families lived in 82 public houses.
Many of them are from informal settlements that were badly affected by the floods. DA provincial leader Francois Rogers addressed the media in Durban.
“In some of the halls we visited, more than 400 people, men, women and children, slept in one room. In the hall we visited, one of the flood victims had just given birth in that hall. So this is really a situation that shocked us. And then we wrote to the Human Rights Commission. I filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, testifying. The Human Rights Commission acknowledged receipt. “
The victims of the flood, who are in the shelter, express concern about their living conditions:
