Johannesburg city officials, who have been holding a press conference close to where the blaze happened, have confirmed that the building was owned by the city.

They blamed criminal “cartels” who “prey on poor and vulnerable people” by taking over – or “hijacking” – buildings and then dangerously overfilling them.

In response to a question about whether his administration would take responsibility for the tragedy, Johannesburg Mayor Kabelo Gwamanda defended his administration saying it was dealing with the problem of hijacking and had already tackled the issue in other parts of the city.

Lebogang Maile, the politician responsible for housing in the local province, said there was a chronic problem with housing in the area, with 1.2 million people needing somewhere to live.

The area of central Johannesburg where the blaze happened is home to a lot of African migrants to South Africa, the BBC’s Nomsa Maseko says.

The apartment block that caught fire is in an area where there are what have been described as a “hijacked” building – meaning that they have been taken over by squatters, and many of those may be from outside the country.

South Africa, which has one of the largest economies on the continent, has become a magnet for people from neighbouring states as well as further afield in Africa.

There has been a long history of people going to South Africa for work – particularly in the mining sector – but in recent decades, the numbers have boomed.

Official statistics say that there are 2.9 million immigrants in the country out of a population of 60 million, but the numbers could be higher as there are thought to be many undocumented migrants.

UN data from 2020 suggests that people from neighbouring Zimbabwe made up the highest proportion – almost one in four migrants – but there are also many from Mozambique, Lesotho and Malawi.

South Africa has also drawn people from Somalia in East Africa and Nigeria in West Africa.

Credit: BBC