http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=1245&catID=9

'The first night we had electricity was so exciting'

In South Africa's informal settlements, there are on average 10 shack fires a day, with over 200 people a year losing their lives. The one-room huts are assembled using plastic, cardboard and corrugated iron and built closely together, so fire spreads rapidly. In the eThekwini district of KwaZulu-Natal, which includes Durban, over 900,000 people live in informal settlements and, without electricity, people are forced to use parafin stoves and candles. Abahlali baseMjondolo, a movement which campaigns for decent housing held a Shack Fire Summit last November to raise awareness of the issues and to commemorate those who have died. Zodwa Nsibande lives in the Kennedy Road settlement and was burnt badly in a stove accident in 2006.

http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=1237&catID=9

The real 'District 9' - South Africa's shack dwellers

Monday September 7th 2009

Around 12 million South Africans live in shack dwellings or 'informal settlements'. Often these have no electricity, sanitation or refuse collection. In 2007, the KwaZulu-Natal authority, which includes the city of Durban, passed the 'Elimination and Prevention of Re-Emergence of Slums Act', a programme to eradicate all shack dwellings by 2014. Tens of thousands of shack dwellers are at risk of eviction, and being displaced into temporary 'transit areas' far out of town, something satirised in the new film District 9. Abahlali baseMjondolo was established in 2005 and has become the largest social movement in post-apartheid South Africa. Its key demand is for ‘Land & Housing in the City’. In November 2008, ABM applied to the Durban High Court to challenge the Slums Act as unconstitutional, to keep their homes and to fight for decent housing. Mnikelo Ndabankulu, who has lived in the Foreman Road Settlement since 2001, describes what life is like