Update (9:12 p.m.): Between 50 & 100 shacks have been destroyed. The fire brigade arrived late – the media got there long before they did. The community is very angry.

Terrible Shack Fire Currently Raging in QQ Section, Khayelitsha
Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Emergency Press Statement 07/12/2010

A terrible fire is currently raging in the QQ Section settlement in Khayelitsha. More than twenty homes and the community-built creche have already been destroyed. The fire is still raging.

Shack fires are not natural disasters. They are a direct result of the contempt in which the government holds the poor in this country. Shack fires are political.We will never accept that it is normal for the poor to burn.

Those so-called social justice organisations that are calling for a politics of patience in which the poor do not directly and immediately confront our oppression take no account of THE FACT that our every day lives are an emergency. We live in crisis every day. We live in life threatening conditions every day. This is what drives us to the streets. We will continue to go to the streets until our humanity is recognised and we are treated with dignity. It is not our protests that are a threat to our society. Is the way that we are forced to live that is a threat to society. It is the oppression of the poor that is a threat to society.

We refuse to be patient. We refuse to accept that it is normal for human beings to have to live like this.

For on the scene updates and comment from QQ section please contact:

Mr. Qona 076 041 0057
Mbongeni 076 981 6945