POLITICAL NEWS - The DA claims the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has turned a blind eye to the inhumane conditions under which the victims of the April floods live.
The party on Monday staged a protest outside the SAHRC’s Durban offices to bring attention to the plight of the thousands of KwaZulu-Natal residents who were left homeless.
DA provincial leader, Francois Rodgers who led the protest said attempts by the country’s official opposition to get the SAHRC to compel the government to do something about the “unbearable” conditions which the province’s displaced residents are living under, has hit a brick wall.
The DA has, on several occasions in recent months, attempted to engage the SAHRC on matters we believe to be significant human rights violations involving citizens of eThekwini.
“The ongoing suffering of KZN’s flood victims, and the severe water and sanitation crisis facing the province, are a grave injustice for people who are left to fend for themselves without adequate government support and in extraordinarily trying circumstances. The DA believes the commission has failed to intervene on behalf of KZN’s flood victims, thousands of whom are living under inhumane conditions in community halls some six months later.”
The April floods, which destroyed infrastructure and claimed more than 400 lives, left more than 6 000 people in the province homeless.
Even though the government has been able to provide temporary houses to some of the displaced, the bulk still live in community halls and other unsuitable structures.
Rodgers said it was unacceptable that the majority of the victims still live under inhumane conditions — months after the government promised to provide them with decent accommodation.
This issue has now become a human rights crisis yet the SAHRC is nowhere to be found. To make matters worse, the commission has also disregarded the DA’s attempts to engage directly on the issue.
Rodgers, who was joined by a group of DA supporters brandishing placards dismissing the SAHRC as a “captured” organisation, handed over a memorandum of demands to SAHRC provincial officials.
The fact that the SAHRC is doing everything in its power not to work with and engage with the DA on two such serious humanitarian issues points to the capture of this organisation.
SAHRC national spokesperson, Wisani Baloyi, said the human rights body would first study the DA’s memorandum of demands before issuing any comment.
