Johannesburg - The Johannesburg CBD is no stranger to tragedy, but the events that unfolded in the early hours of Thursday morning were particularly devastating. The darkness of night, under the last Super Blue Moon until 2037, was pierced by a blaze that consumed a five-story building and claimed the lives of 74 people, 12 of them children, and more than 50 injured.
On this fateful night, the flames wrote a chapter of devastation that resonated with a unique pain. The building stood not only as a monument to poverty and migration but also as a symbol of systemic neglect, a beacon of the broader issues that plague society.
Locked like a treasure chest with a rusted latch, the solitary security gate to escape remained an impassable barrier that transformed into a grim reaper. The very precaution intended to safeguard against theft, intrusion and possible police raids at the hijacked building now stood as a heartless sentinel, sealing the fate of those within.
Within the charred walls of 80 Albert Street existed a microcosm of vulnerability. A confluence of life's wanderers living in a maze of shacks inside the building, seeking refuge from the storms of their origins – economic migrants, asylum seekers, and the disenfranchised sons and daughters of South Africa. A diverse blend of humanity, knitted together by circumstances they did not choose, but nonetheless united by shared struggles.
The majority of the building's occupants hailed from distant lands; Malawi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe – nations whose inhabitants are bound by hopes as they left their homelands in search of pastures said to be greener in a cityscape that promised both sanctuary and peril.
Johannesburg keeps her promises.
The tragedy underscored the abject failure to address the interplay of poverty, migration, and safety. The blaze served as a reminder of society's disregard for those teetering on the precipice of existence.
The flames that devoured 80 Albert Street revealed a stark truth – that beyond the glittering skyscrapers and bustling streets of Johannesburg's CBD, a shadowed underbelly persists, inhabited by those society has left behind. Those who are willing to throw themselves out of windows like caution to the wind to avoid a fiery death above, or meet it below when splattering on concrete. They know that when you are stuck between a rock and a hot place, you either jump or burn in this building.
At the front entrance of 80 Albert Street, a blue plaque stands as a reminder of history's echoes. This building, a heritage site of South Africa’s apartheid past, housed the office of the Non-European Affairs Department. An irony that the very place which once controlled the movement of African people through the infamous "dompas" now stood locked, trapping lives in a heart-wrenching twist of fate. The plaque, in its stoic words, reads, "The ‘dompas’ which controlled the movement of African people was issued here."
A spell was cast here, the building lived up and burned down to its words of restricting the movement of African people. Johannesburg keeps her promises.