Levubu farm workers were left stranded after their shacks were destroyed by a fire on Saturday night.

Nineteen shacks at the Mafela Harvest Farm in Levubu were destroyed by the fire. It is alleged that the shacks might have been set alight by a man who was having an affair with one of the women who are staying on the farm. Farm workers whose houses were burnt down said that a man who used to visit the farm had had a quarrel with his girlfriend, who was staying in one of the shacks. This is apparently the shack that first caught fire. According to the workers, the woman was staying at one of the shacks illegally as she did not work at the farm.

“She used to invite different men to her shack. Now our shacks have been destroyed because of her. All our belongings including clothes, IDs, blankets and food were destroyed,” said one of the workers, Mr Joseph Mukwevho.

Mukwevho said that the fire started at the woman´s shack at about midnight. “When I woke up, the fire had already destroyed one shack and the other shacks were on fire,” he said.

When Mirror visited the farm on Monday, the workers were busy erecting new shacks. The damage is estimated at R100 000. According to the owner of the farm, Mrs Lillie Wessels, she was woken up by the workers alerting her of the fire. “We then called the Entabeni Timbadola Forest for assistance, but when they arrived with a water tanker, the fire had already destroyed 19 shacks,” she said.

“We then offered the workers one of the store rooms to sleep inside to protect themselves against the cold,” said Wessels. Wessels said that the fire did not affect production as it only destroyed the shacks.

The spokesman for the Levubu police, Insp Solly Mukhola, confirmed the incident. “We have opened a case of arson and we are continuing with investigations,” he said.