Two townships near East London in the Eastern Cape, Mdantsane and Duncan Village, went under water on the first weekend of the new year. Government termed the incident as floods but it is yet to officially affirm it as a disaster. At the time of writing this article, more than 10 people had died from the floods and thousands of homes had been completely destroyed.

One of the deceased was a grade 12 pupil, Yonela Pamla, who was waiting to receive her matric results at the time of her death. The affected families from these townships, black families, have lost children, clothes, furniture, food, toiletries, and identity documents, to mention a few. But essentially, they have lost human dignity...