APART from placing thousands of jobs at risk and causing more than R10-billion worth of damage due to looting and arson, the KZN unrest has also negatively impacted animal NPO’s like Feeding the Furballs, run by Redhill resident Farrah Khan Maharajh.

The NPO feeds more than 550 animals from Eshowe to Underberg and also helps with sterilisation drives.

Maharajh said the unrest had impacted her pet food stock reserves and she is now appealing to the wider Durban community for help.

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“Besides not getting to the areas we help out, we also found several residents in need of pet food. Due to long queues at supermarkets and several shops being burned down we had members of the public ask for assistance. We have a branded vehicle so when we at community manned roadblocks or queues for petrol we had people who needed dog and cat food for their pets.

“We knew we had to help and we gave out several kilograms of dog and cat foot to those in need. We distributed on Blackburn Road, Church Road, Umhlanga Rocks Drive and Parthab Road to name a few. Everywhere we turned we saw people really worried about feeding themselves and their pets. It really was an unprecedented time and because of this our stocks were severely depleted. We even used some of our reserves to help whoever we could. We are appealing to the community for help as we attempt to restock our reserves,” she said.

Maharajh added that any brand of food was welcomed.

“Any help offered would be welcomed. We need wet and dry food and we will make use of whatever is donated no matter the brand. If people would like to help donate items we have three drop-off points in the area. The Spade Design Centre on Lothian Road is one drop-off point, we also have a drop-off point inside the Kensington SPAR and the Cellworx shop in the same centre. We have more details on our Facebook page should anyone wish to help or make monetary donations,” she said.