COP27: KwaZulu-Natal flood victims’ fates were sealed years ago: Nokwazi Mbambo watched her life wash away in April, and little has changed six months later. The climate change induced floods destroyed her home
Nokwazi Mbambo, 19, was in her bed in Lindelani, an informal settlement in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, listening to the rain thundering down on the corrugated iron roof of her family’s shack.Someone was knocking on the door, urgently. Mbambo and her mother ignored it, willing themselves to fall asleep.Mbambo and her mother got up to open the door, and the two found their distraught neighbour on their doorstep. “Your house is moving!” the neighbour screamed frantically.
It was too late to save their belongings. As they scrambled out of their home, they grabbed what few things they could. They made their way to their neighbour’s house, where they would spend the night, watching their home being washed away.She is in a make-shift shelter in the Ntuzuma F district community hall, about 15km from her former home. The shelter was set up by the state for people displaced by the floods, which leftThe community hall was supposed to be temporary lodging, but six months later, Mbambo and her mother are still there.Not far away, on the streets of Durban’s city centre is Mfundo Shezi, 32.
“I lost my ID book, even all my blankets and clothes were washed away. Even my medication. I had a container for a whole month’s [antiretroviral] tablets.”which makes it harder for their bodies to fight off infections. Almost 9 000km away, in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh, world leaders have gathered for the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference running from 6 to 18 November.
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