Home | News | FLOATING BODIES, LOSS OF WIFE HAUNT VICTIMS

FLOATING BODIES, LOSS OF WIFE HAUNT VICTIMS

09/05/2022 08:26:00 Delisa Thwala

Font size:

MBABANE – Some emaSwati who are victims of the floods that hit the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province in South Africa, wish to forget the ordeal.

Three emaSwati who reside in KZN have described the recent floods they experienced as tragic. The catastrophic flooding saw about 448 people losing their lives, and five emaSwati were confirmed to have suffered losses. Out of the five emaSwati, three of them reached out to this publication to share their ordeal and further seek help in rebuilding their lives. Worth noting is that the five emaSwati were confirmed by the South African Police Service (SAPS) Spokesperson Captain Mavela Masondo to have been affected.

Documents

He said the information was contained in the victim documents they currently had in their possession. At the time, he said they did not have their full identities, just documents that suggested they were emaSwati. Masondo said the five emaSwati who resided in KZN lost their possessions after their houses were damaged by the floods. Speaking to the first victim, Sihle Lukhele, who requested not to reveal her place of origin, said she had not anticipated that the floods would affect her the way they did. “I knew things were bad but I thought it was just rain and it will end,” said Lukhele. When describing the day, she said on April 11, 2022, heavy rains triggered floods in KZN, leading to an excess of 300mm of rainfall over a 24-hour period. Reportedly, most damage had been localised in the Durban area, which is the republic’s third most populous city.

“Due to trauma, I do not remember everything that happened before water and mud, lots of mud made its way into my rented apartment. Next thing I saw were my couches floating inside the room,” she said when narrating her story. Lukhele said during the floods, there came a time when she had to leave the house and everything inside because her life was important than possessions. “I’m pregnant; when all this happened I was seven months pregnant and I cannot even tell you how scared I was. After police and a disaster group grouped us into tents, reality kicked in that I was pregnant and homeless,” she said.

Traumatic

Lukhele recounted seeing floating bodies of children and adults on the outskirts of KZN, as being the most traumatic thing she could have seen. “It is sad, seeing that took a toll on everyone,” she said. Sharing another devastating version of the KZN floods was Nompendulo Thwala, who is originally from Manzini at Nyakeni. She mentioned that she had lived in KZN for over five years now. She said she had never seen anything like floods. Her house was wiped away as it was a shack and she was left with nothing but a fractured arm and a cellphone. “I remember being on my stomach trying to force my way out of the house. I could not walk because it was slippery so it was more like swimming in mud,” she said.

Struggling

In addition to that, Thwala said even after the floods had passed, they continued to struggle and were still struggling. “We spent days without clothes, toiletries and we literally were grounded because we could not move to anywhere. Till this day, I’m homeless and squat at friends’ houses,” she said. The police in South Africa are currently facilitating help for the victims. The help is in the form of tents, food, mobile hospitals and similar assistance. It was gathered that approximately 40 000 people had been left homeless and a large number have been sheltering for days in more than 20 schools, community halls and churches in the eThekwini region around Durban – few of whom have access to running water, electricity or adequate sanitation for the hundreds of people sheltering there.

Last to share his story was Musa Mziyako, originally from Mankayane, who said he unfortunately lost his wife due to the floods. Mziyako said he still could not deal with the loss of his wife. The wife was a South African and they did not have children. He said his wife died when the kombi they were travelling in could not make it out of the water and they had to swim out.

Kombi

“It was a Tuesday and all of a sudden the kombi was surrounded by water. We had to swim out but my wife could not. I watched in horror as she was swept away and I could not do anything about it,” he said. The three emaSwati shared that since the floods, families had been having difficulties in identifying their relatives. Some are fighting over remains and things have not really gone back to normal. They further shared that many of the displaced people lost all their possessions, including their chronic disease medications, especially for diabetes and hypertension, in the floods. They are now struggling to access healthcare services due to the scale of infrastructural damage, and steep challenges of daily survival. According to ENCA news, the city remains in crisis a number of days after the storm, and it was now primarily a crisis of water and sanitation provision to hospitals, clinics and communities. As of April 15, 2022, the media reported that the KZN authorities indicated that homes, businesses, roads, bridges as well as electricity and water infrastructure had been damaged or destroyed.

Destroyed

An estimated 40 723 people have been affected, with more than 16 262 houses and 264 schools destroyed. The affected populations are exposed to high levels of food insecurity, waterborne diseases and risks of COVID-19 infections as a majority are accommodated in evacuation shelters that are crowded with limited hygiene materials to use. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, through its Communications Officer Sikhumbuzo Bhembe, reiterated their previous statement that they were working closely with the South African Embassy to establish the exact number of emaSwati in KZN.

He said they had no records of affected emaSwati yet, but were working on establishing the number. “We work closely with the South African Embassy and we have a difficult time finding these people because some of them do not cross the country officially,” he said. He said they had no formal record of the number of emaSwati in KZN because they either crossed the country without documents of used informal crossing points.