A year since #MarshalltownFire

Today is the first anniversary of an inferno that killed 76 people at a hijacked building in the Joburg CBD. Some of the people failed to escape owing to informal structures that had been built within that building which hampered their escape, while others jumped to their deaths. The remains of some of the victims are still in state mortuaries, unidentified. A very articulate man was interviewed by many media houses, and claimed to have woken up to find his room engulfed in smoke. During a commission of inquiry into the fire, chaired by Justice Sisi Khampepe, that same man, 31-year-old Sithembiso Lawrence Mdlalose , was called to testify as a witness.

Unprovoked,  he blurted out that he had caused the fire as he was trying to conceal a murder he had just committed while high on some drug. He was subsequently arrested and charged with arson, 76 counts of murder, and 86 of attempted murder. His case was repeatedly postponed as authorities tried to verify his details and conduct further investigations. In the last update I've seen, he was still in custody in March, but my colleague Ziniko Mhlaba, who's covering the story, says his lawyer successfully argued that the confession was inadmissible, following which Mdlalose was released. The commission of inquiry found the City of Joburg and Johannesburg Property Company liable for the disaster. No one has been held accountable. 76 people. Try counting to 76, that's how many people died in a horrific manner. They were staying in that building illegally,  but that doesn't mean they had to be incinerated alive. Their deaths could have been avoided, but someone slept on their job to avoid them getting into that building. They're clearly still sleeping because another fire killed four people in another hijacked building in the same CBD last week.