Disaster relief agency Gift of the Givers is providing two million rands ($244,000; 190,000 euro) worth of food, ladling out stew and rice from giant pots to thousands of people lining up near the shooting site.
It will remain there until the end of the week and plan to hand out food parcels, hoping that easing hunger will help lower tensions.
“Here there is hunger and people haven’t been fed for four weeks and hunger causes anger and we want to quell their anger, provide them (with) food and bring some calmness to the situation,” said agency founder Imtiaz Sooliman.
Usual credit channels have been closed off, with locals saying micro lenders are refusing loans as they know the workers are going without pay.
“Here there is hunger and people haven’t been fed for four weeks and hunger causes anger and we want to quell their anger.” said agency founder Imtiaz Sooliman.
At a small general dealer amid the shacks, 21-year-old shop assistant Khomotso Mokitlane said business had dipped and people were not paying their debts.
“It’s so quiet. People, they don’t come because of the strike. They don’t have money,” she said.
“This month, they don’t pay,” she added, saying the store had stopped offering groceries on credit.
Striking worker Stumelo Mzingelwa’s salary cheque was whittled down from a net of 4.000 rand to 600 rand — forcing his wife and baby to depend on his parents and no more cheese or cold drinks in his fridge.
But after witnessing the shooting, where he says police ran over people in armoured vans, he is adamant that he will not return without a pay hike.
“We want 12.5 (thousand rands, $1,526) because our brothers are already dead. We can’t go back to work without this money,” he said.
With the shooting having become a battleground for political factions, he said people were angry with President Jacob Zuma who is battling for re-election in ruling party polls at year-end in Bloemfontein known as Mangaung.
“We are going to take him out in Mangaung, no matter what because you see this country, we have a democracy but it’s not a democracy any more — it’s demon-ocracy.”
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