In late August, 77 people died in a house fire in Johannesburg that had been “hijacked” by gangs. There are hundreds of such buildings here – they are a symbol of failure and decay. Can the city still be saved?
No. 80, Albert Street. It will be a symbol of hell on earth for the people of Johannesburg for a long time. On August 31st, after midnight, a candle apparently fell. In no time, the five-storey building was engulfed in flames. More than 200 families lived here, but before the fire there was no talk of a decent life in this house.
Residents were trapped. The emergency doors were closed, the actual house entrances were closed, and the house was covered with heavy bars so that no robbers could enter the house at night. 77 people died, including 12 children, and 88 were injured. Most of them suffocated in the blocked exits, and many were burned beyond recognition. Most of the victims have not been identified till date.
During apartheid, there was an authority in the building known as the “Department for European Affairs”. At that time, apartheid, Johannesburg was a city where only white people could move freely. European newspapers were available in cafes, there was a tram, and there was little crime.
77 residents of 80 Albert Street were burnt to death. Emergency routes were closed and the actual house entrances were also cordoned off with heavy barricades.
Organized crime was curbed
However, black-skinned people had to show a pass to enter the city center in the morning, work there, and return to the slums of the metropolis in the evening. Then apartheid ended. In 1994, Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first black president after its first truly democratic elections.
But white people? Fearing that it was now their turn to be oppressed, they left the city center. Architecturally, Johannesburg was a city of buildings that exuded power – banks, insurance companies, government offices. The houses are still there, the former rulers are long gone.
This created a vacuum in which organized crime quickly invaded, and criminals from around the world saw their opportunity. Human traffickers from Mozambique, organized prostitution from Nigeria, gangs from Albania, Great Britain and Germany. The city center became a “no-go area”.
700 “hijacked” houses
The house at number 80 Albert Street was initially empty. At one point, no one knows exactly when people moved into the building. People who have migrated from their homeland because there is nothing but poverty there. Daily job seekers in Johannesburg. Migrant workers from Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, but also South Africa and other African countries.
Earlier offices were partitioned with plasterboard or tarps. People slept in small huts and cooked their meals over open fires. But: they had to pay rent – to the criminal gangs that “hijacked” the house.
The building is actually owned by the Johannesburg City Council. He bought it in 2019 to create parking spaces for towed vehicles. In the distance is a large Johannesburg police station. But the municipal administration didn’t care, so the goons collected the rent. There are more than 700 such houses in the city of Johannesburg. They are a symbol of official failure, a symbol of the area’s decline, a former commercial center.
Lost City or “Comeback Kid”?
President Cyril Ramaphosa arrived on the day of the fire and said it should be a turning point and that neglected areas should now be addressed. Nobody took him seriously in South Africa.
“The truth is we didn’t want to live here. We had to,” said Asyatu Mati, a woman from Malawi. She jumped from the fourth floor with her six-month-old baby and broke her leg. But she and her baby survived. Now their neighbors also say: “We no longer have a city, we have lost the city.”
No one believes that the city administration will change anything for the better. People listen with contempt as officials try to justify themselves. Mayors are said to have changed frequently over the past few months.
While that’s true, several shaky coalitions have produced one mayor after another recently. However, the decline of the city center goes back a long time.
Just before and after the 2010 World Cup, some promising efforts were made to make the city center livable and safe again. But after a few years the situation worsened again. Now an aid agency is trying a new approach called “Josie My Josie”. “Josie” is an old nickname for Johannesburg.
Some banks are behind the system, but also a fast-food chain and Microsoft. Schools need to be built, companies need to be resettled, “hijacked” houses removed and playgrounds built next to them. It is not entirely clear whether this effort will succeed. But organizers believe they can pull it off. They’ve already given the city of Johannesburg a new nickname: the “comeback kid”.
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