60 families rendered homeless after angry lover set boyfriend's house ablaze

Shack dwellers clear the place where their shacks used to be. Photo by Michael Dlamini.

Hmmm, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, they say. One can only wonder what made her so angry.


60 families were left homeless on Monday after a woman allegedly burned her boyfriend’s shack and the flames spread.

The fire was reportedly started after the woman, whose identity is unknown, started fighting with her boyfriend at Mkholombe squatter camp, near Port Shepstone.

Phumla Nontamo (34) spoke to South Africa  Daily Sun and said she and her one-year-old baby girl were left with only the clothes on their backs.

“I lost everything, including my ID, Sassa and clinic cards. If that woman had a problem with her man she should have dealt with him without burning things down,” Phumla said.

“Now we don’t know where we’re going to sleep. Yesterday we slept at a friend’s house, but it isn’t big enough to accommodate all of us.”

Another resident, Sthembiso Mnguni (42), said he managed to save his belongings before the fire ate his shack.

“I was sitting inside my shack when I smelled smoke. When I went outside I realised other shacks had caught fire,” he said. “We don’t know what started the fire. Some people said a woman came and set one shack alight before running away. She isn’t from here and we don’t know her.”

Councillor Sello Morafe said he was organising food parcels from Sassa.

KZN police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Thulani Zwane said: “A woman in her 30s handed herself over to the police. A case of arson was opened. No injuries were reported.”