Broadcast DetailsShow: Special Assignment VIIIEpisode Title: Thembisa's Bones
Date: Tuesday, 22 August, 2006
Time: 21h30
Channel: SABC 3
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Much is made of crime in urban areas and on farms, but seldom considered is what happens in rural villages, where the suffering caused by horrendous acts of violence has a profound effect on communities.
This Tuesday, Special Assignment travels to the Eastern Cape, where villagers of the Ngqushwa district feel they are at the mercy of criminals. They say rapists and murderers are rarely apprehended because police lack resources and investigative skills.
In June, 40-year-old Thembisa Hanise was attacked, robbed and set alight in her home in the village of Qamnyana. In Hamburg, 35 year old Pumza Gusha was axed to death, while her two young daughters slept in a room next door.
Workers at the Peddie Women’s Support Centre, an NGO, say they are seeing increased levels of violence, directed at women and girl children. A visit to the area by Safety & Security Minister Charles Nqakula did little to ease the situation, says director Fezeka Mantakana. “It didn’t help because there were cases that he left the police to investigate, but there is nothing happening… it’s worrying.”
Villagers say they used to be able to send their children on errands from one village to another. “But now we daren’t” says traditional healer Bulelani Sikundla.
“We may not see them again.”
Twenty-year old Nolonwabo Koshe disappeared while running an errand for her mother. Her bones were found in the veld more than a year later. The body of 5-year-old Anelisa Gxaweni was found in a grain sack in a shallow dam; the severed head of 15-year old Vuyokazi Ndlakuhlola was discovered in her school bag; while a goatherd found his dog eating the remains of 19-year-old Thembisa Ngadlele.
Her devastated father says he knows exactly who killed her and where he lives, but that the police don’t have the know-how nor the inclination to do a proper investigation.