Durban: With a shortage of food supplies in KZN following days of looting and violent unrest, trucks from Gauteng carrying thousands of loaves of bread and milk arrived in Durban on Thursday after businesses, NGOs and NPOs banded together.
Mohamed Gany, Chairman of NMJ, said that plans to bring much needed foodstuffs to Durban from Gauteng had begun on Tuesday night.
At least 20 different businesses, NGOs and NPOs – including Muslims for Humanity and the Natal Memon Jamaat Foundation (NMJ) joined hands to distribute 40 000 loaves of bread and 40 000 litres of milk to communities.
Gany said in order to avoid crowded distribution points, various community organisations and individual businesses in Durban had pooled resources to take the bread and milk into different communities from a central point.
According to Mohamed Riaz Fakie, marketing coordinator for SANZAP, who was manning one of the distribution points on Thursday morning, various organisations had been inundated with calls offering help from Gauteng and a last-minute decision had been taken to work together to load the much needed foodstuffs on trucks headed for Durban.
He said various businesses and community organisations in Gauteng had funded both the food and the private security contingent that had been needed to get the milk and bread to Durban from Gauteng safely.
Fakie said that it was hoped that the dire food shortages that were gripping the city in the wake of the destruction of retail outlets, factories and warehouses, could be resolved as soon as supply chains could be restored.
IOL