Winter's fury exposes South Africa's hidden poverty

IN South Africa, the winter season thus far has been nothing short of brutal. Across the nation, various regions have been experiencing harrowing weather.

Storms have washed away homes, bridges and roads are flooded, and many areas remain generally inaccessible. The most notable of these winter storms has been the devastating Eastern Cape Floods, claiming more than 100 lives to date, including schoolchildren.

What we are witnessing is more than just seasonal discomfort; we are seeing, yet again, the deadly collision between poverty, climate change, and systemic neglect.

From Cape Town’s icy winds to rampant storms, to the devastating floods in the Eastern Cape, severe cold fronts across the nation have been debilitating for millions of South Africans. In the Eastern Cape alone, thousands of homes have been destroyed, and many people have been displaced.

These devastating floods have shone a stark light on a nationwide (even universal) problem: that winter is not merely cold; it is a crisis, especially for the millions of our people living in informal settlements and impoverished communities across the nation.

The main distinction is that, in these chilly seasons, the extreme economic disparities in our society are especially accentuated. We are only halfway through the season, but those who can afford warm clothes, heaters, and hot food are those who are most privileged at this time. For millions of others, it is a harrowing time.

Infrastructural development and public service delivery have been a rampant issue across the nation for decades now. Millions of people still travel untarred roads, live in crumbling structures, have no access to clean water and electricity, and so much more that is critical to survival in the cold of winter.

We must speak plainly. The floods that ravaged the Eastern Cape, which have since been declared a National Disaster, are not a mere anomaly. They are the foreseeable outcome of decades of inequality, spatial apartheid, poor urban planning, and the global climate emergency that hits the Global South first and hardest.

While wealthier South Africans are able to simply adjust their integrated heating systems or drive over pothole-filled roads in 4x4s, the vast majority of our people face the winter in non-insulated makeshift structures that are highly overpopulated, relying on paraffin stoves or open fires that pose their dangers.

Across our provinces, the land is still scarred by the legacy of apartheid and dispossession, and it is the Black majority (particularly the poor and working class) who are left to face the worst of nature’s fury, without shelter, resources, or protection.

According to the World Bank, 41.8 million South Africans live in poverty in 2025. This is approximately 64% of the entire population. Additionally, according to the SA Human Rights Commission, 64% of all black South Africans are living in poverty, and 41% of all Coloured South Africans are living in poverty. This is significantly higher than any other racial demographic in the nation.

The 2022 Stats SA report indicated that the national homeless population had quadrupled to 55 719 since 1996, the dawn of democracy. This number proliferates every year, and winter is the most detrimental for the thousands of people without shelter, particularly during this frigid winter.

In addition to this, millions of people across the nation take public transport daily. From taxis to buses, national transportation systems are heavily depended upon, particularly for those commuting to work and school. In winter, the vulnerabilities of this lived reality are exceptionally exacerbated.

About a week ago, the SA Weather Service (SAWS) announced a series of cold fronts that would sweep the nation, consisting of extremely cold temperatures, extreme rains and thunder, and strong winds.

The epitome of the impact of this was certainly seen from the Eastern Cape flooding news coverage. Not only have the floods swept homes away, but also vehicles, businesses, and infrastructures like bridges and roads. This almost always adversely impacts critical services like water, electricity, transportation, refuse removal, and so much more.

In situations such as these, people get trapped in their homes or workplaces. Others are unable to even travel out of their neighbourhoods. This means that people miss work and compromise their incomes, and children miss school, which compromises their education. Informal workers, who are highly reliant on high traffic areas and general public services, become exceedingly vulnerable in instances where they’re unable to proceed with work.

What is important to note is that these same challenges are contended with, year after year, winter after winter. Homes are swept away, assets destroyed, lives lost, children freezing in makeshift structures, the elderly cut off from emergency services, collapsed roads and walkways, entire communities submerged in floodwaters, and so much more. These are not just headlines, they are our realities - and they are becoming much too frequent.

This is not merely about climate change or global warming. This is not solely an environmental issue; it is a social justice issue. It is about who has the privilege to survive and who is left to perish. And in our country, the dividing line is race, class, and geography — a painful echo of our apartheid past that still reverberates through our democratic society.

We cannot continue to normalise these conditions, these forms of suffering.

This is also shining a light on our issues in governance. There has been a devastatingly poor action of investing in climate-resilient infrastructure, upgrading informal settlements, investing in disaster preparedness and community-led resilience strategies, and more. Ignoring these persistent challenges is no longer an issue. It is now painfully clear that problems don’t go away when ignored. As the elders like to say: “Burying your head in the sand won’t stop the storm.”

This winter is more than a season — it’s a signal. A call to wake up, to come together, and to fight for a future where no one is left to endure the cold alone. A future where the land that has long nourished us is defended, not only from natural extremes, but from human-driven forces of greed, injustice, and neglect.

This isn’t just about the weather. It’s about equity. It’s about survival and solidarity. It’s about justice. As the prolific Dr Martin Luther King Jr once passionately said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

* Tswelopele Makoe is a gender and social justice activist and editor at Global South Media Network. She is a researcher, columnist, and an Andrew W Mellon scholar at the Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice, UWC. The views expressed are her own.

** The views expressed here do not reflect those of the Sunday Independent, IOL, or Independent Media.

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