Shops destroyed by fire in downtown Joburg

Days after the fire which destroyed their stock, shop owners salvaged what they could to sell as scrap metal. Photo: Kimberly Mutandiro

A fire in downtown Johannesburg last week has left more than a dozen shop owners, most of whom are immigrants, destitute. The cause of the fire is not yet known, and the City of Johannesburg has discovered the building may have been hijacked by a syndicate.

The fire, which destroyed 12 shops in the one-storey building, as well as smaller shops sublet inside the main retail units, occurred on 11 August.

Ethiopian brothers Nunamo and Zeleke Adoro ran a supermarket in the building and had their sleeping quarters at the back of the shop. They were away from the premises when the fire broke out and lost about R100,000 worth of stock, as well as their asylum documents.

“We worked a lifetime to build our business, but now everything has been lost. We don’t know what to do,” said Nunamo.

“We are only grateful for life. Worse could have happened because we also lived in the building. If the fire had broken out while we were sleeping, we might not have lived to see this day,” he said.

Dennis Owunezi, who ran a laundry, said he was sitting in his car after coming back from church, when he heard people screaming that there was a fire.

Owunezi said he tried using a fire extinguisher to battle the blaze, but it was already beyond control. He said by the time the fire department arrived, everything had been destroyed.

“We lost everything. The person who started the fire must have done so intentionally,” he said.

While investigating what happened, Ward Councillor Ian Nonkumbi established that the shop owners did not know to whom they were paying rent. Nonkumbi said whoever the rent was being paid to was not paying the City for services, and the building had been wired with illegal electricity connections.

He said in the absence of proof of ownership of the building, of payment to the City, and of legal leases for the tenants, he suspected the building had been hijacked by a syndicate. He said he would be meeting with the Mayco member for public safety to determine a way forward.

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