Canaan Mdletshe

All that 29-year-old Sizwe Mbokazi from the Tintown informal settlement in Greytown wishes for in the new year is an RDP house.

Mbokazi suffers from leprosy, but the disabled man endures further hardship because he is attacked by rats while sleeping in his mud shack. Fresh bloodstains covered his sheets when Sowetan visited him.

Mbokazi contracted the disease when he was 12.

"I was admitted to Greytown Hospital, but was referred to Prince Mshiyeni Hospital because they could not treat me," he said.

But even the doctors at Mshiyeni Hospital could not help him and he became disabled.

"My hands and feet are numb. I cannot feel anything, and my bones sometimes stick out of my skin.

"I have rough patches where the rats have bitten me," he says.

"My mother and sister rent a one-room house near where she works and I live by myself."

The filthy shack reeks of squalor and rain seeps through the roof and walls.

"All I need is a house that can accommodate my mother, my sister and me so that at least they can look after me," Mbokazi adds.