WATCH | ‘A lot of criminality takes place here’: More details emerge on deadly Jeppestown fire

The abandoned Jeppestown building where four people died and three others were injured was a place where a “lot of criminality takes place”, including on the morning the deadly fire broke out.

This was revealed by Joburg mayor Dada Morero after the devastating blaze at the multistorey hijacked building in the early hours of Sunday.

He said responders saw groups of people leaving the building during the fire carrying guns and ammunition.

Joburg emergency management services spokesperson Robert Mulaudzi said the cause of the fire is believed to be an illegal connection given the status of the building. He said two men and two women died in the blaze.

Speaking after the blaze was put out, Joburg's newly-installed mayor revealed the condemned building was owned by a private company.

“I might not know what it used to do. As you know, this was a factory that was abandoned some years ago. So we will establish exactly what were the operations in this building. The city manager and our team already have the name of the company but they just have to do a bit of investigation,” he told reporters at the scene.

On what will happen to displaced residents, whose number is yet to be confirmed, Morero said they will be moved to a place of safety, where they will be processed and profiled so the city can determine “the size of the population [that resided there] so that we can know what the next course of action will be”.

Morero confirmed the building was a “centre where a lot of criminality takes place, including rape, robberies of people”.

He also spoke broadly on the city's struggle with hijacked buildings, saying the city was working on a strategy to deal with the matter.

"[We] shouldn't think this is a simple solution, it's very complicated. We have a lot of syndicates involved. You need law enforcement agencies to help you investigate.

“In fact the team was telling us just now as they were coming in in the early hours of the morning to extinguish the fire, there were a lot of groups coming out with high artillery from this very building, which suggests the city alone will not have the necessary capacity to deal with this thing.”

Meanwhile, a resident and ward committee member living near the building provided more details on what she witnessed.

“At around 12am, we heard something bursting and realised there was something wrong. But because we live in Jeppestown, we thought perhaps it was someone getting shot. When this continued, we came out as ward committee members to check what was happening.

“When we investigated, we saw a fire had broken out but we couldn't understand what caused it. When we asked what happened, no one would tell us,” Thobile Sisaga told SABC news.

She also confirmed the building had been hijacked.

The latest blaze comes just days before the one-year anniversary of the Usindiso tragedy, which claimed 76 lives on August 31, 2023.

The building has since been declared unsafe and is set for demolition.

The Sunday Times, which reported extensively on the current state of the tragedy, also laid bare details of another abandoned four-storey building in Doornfontein with many similarities to Usindiso.

The unnamed building has also been hijacked and an investigation revealed it was privately-owned by a family called Seef.

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