Oliehout Street in Bonteheuwel smells of the burnt wreckage left by a fire that killed a 60-year-old woman and her two grandchildren on Sunday.
The fire swept through two wendy houses on Sunday June 6, after 1am, and engulfed everything in the homes, displacing 13 people.
Charred debris filled the yard. The main home was quiet, and a sense of loss could be felt.
Shanaaz Abrahams, who lived in one of the wendy houses, said that she had been in the main house in front, when a little girl, who had visited for the day, had banged on the door, yelling that there was a fire in the yard.
Mariam Davids had been in a wheelchair so she could not have saved her two grandchildren, Fawaad Davids, 8, and his brother, Igshaad, 4, said Ms Abrahams.
“We have nothing left, everything is gone. No one has been here to offer any help to us. We are really not sure how the fire started, and the little girl is so traumatised she can’t speak, so she also can’t tell us what happened,” she said.
Gasant Mohamed, the grandfather of the little girl who was visiting that night, said it was sad that they had so far been unable to bury the dead, as the bodies had not yet been released from the mortuary.
“They need to get done with their tests because we are Muslim and they must be buried within three days. The police came here with their dog, which was smelling where the fire started and he kept smelling around the body of the granny, but they didn’t say anything to us, so we don’t know how the fire started,” he said.
City Fire and Rescue Services spokesman Jermaine Carelse said the call had come in at 1.40am and crews from Epping, Belhar and Gugulethu had gone to the scene. The fire was extinguished by 2.52am.
“The bodies of a woman and two boys were discovered under the debris, while one woman and a boy were treated for burn wounds and transported to a nearby hospital. Thirteen people were displaced,” he said.
The cause of the blaze was unknown and the scene had been handed over to the police, he said.
Provincial SAPS spokesman Captain FC Van Wyk said that an inquest docket had been opened at Bishop Lavis police station, and the exact cause of the fire had yet to be determined.