'Government is not on our side': July unrest victims feel justice cries unheard

DURBAN - The victims of the Phoenix bloody violence said their cries for justice were completely ignored.

This week marks exactly two years since the violence that saw at least 36 people killed in the north of Durban area during the 2021 July riots.

A suspected vigilante group targeted and assaulted people from the neighbouring communities, badly injuring them and destroying their property.

The group claimed it was protecting the community from looters.

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However, two years later, the victims of the violence were demanding full justice, saying nothing much was done for them.

The committee, which was established for this purpose, said that even on the second-year anniversary of the tragedy, there was still no clarity about what actually happened.

The committee’s Mxolisi Myeni told Eyewitness News that the affected families were still reeling from pain following the loss of their loved ones, and they did not receive anything in the form of compensation from the government.

“Many of them were breadwinners, so they left children as orphans. Some of the survivors had lifetime injuries and had to leave their jobs, and there are a few victims who had to leave Durban and go to the farms since they were no longer able to sustain themselves. Unfortunately, their demands have not been met,” said Myeni.

Eyewitness News also spoke to Mbuso Xaba, who was also badly assaulted by the vigilante groups that barricaded streets in area.

Xaba was with three young boys from his community of KwaMashu, also in the north of Durban, when this happened.

He said he was looking for a petrol station in the area since many others were closed due to trucks not being able to access petrol stations because of the unrest.

And like many other victims, Xaba said nothing was done for them, adding that cases they opened with the police did not yield any positive results.

“There is nothing that has been done. The government doesn’t appear as though it is on our side and the case that I initially opened disappeared early [in 2022].

“An investigative officer did come and take my statement, but months later I got an SMS saying the case had been stopped and that feedback would be communicated as time goes. Many others in our group chat of the Phoenix victims received the same message,” said Xaba.

On 6 July, the KwaZulu-Natal Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) tabled a motion in the provincial legislature for the house to thoroughly investigate the actual cause of the violence.

"The EFF further calls for this house to establish an ad hoc committee to investigate the cause of the Phoenix massacre and further receive submissions from the public on the impact and the aftermath of the massacre in those communities,” said the party’s provincial chairperson Mongezi Twala.

Twala added that the demands of the victims needed to be met by the government of the day and that the needs of the affected families had to be taken care of.

But KwaZulu-Natal Community Safety MEC Sipho Hlomuka claimed that the government ensured that Phoenix did not end up being a no-good zone area.

He also said, unlike in the past, the government was now better prepared to confront difficult situations.

“As a society, we have learnt from such incidents, and as the government we are now aware of what needs to be done should these incidents take place in our province,” said Hlomuka.

However, the victims still want to be compensated for what happened. Some want the children whose parents were killed to be taken to school and for the government to take care of some of their most pressing needs.