“What I saw was really traumatizing. It was traumatic to see people jumping out of a building” On the 31st of August, a fire destroyed a block of flats in the Johannesburg inner city, in South Africa. A total of 77 people died while dozens of others remain in hospital. The police are still investigating how the fire started. The authorities say those who died in the catastrophe were living in the derelict and abandoned building illegally. This is part of what has been described as ‘building hijacking’. Africa Daily’s Mpho Lakaje in Johannesburg speaks to former mayor Herman Mashaba and constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos, to get an understanding of this problem.