Today, the Minister of Community Safety, Albert Fritz, expressed his anger and sadness over the death of Constance Ndlebe, 78, whose naked body was found burning by her daughter at the weekend. This on the back of news of the discovery of the body of Sinovuyo Magatya, 18, in Khayelitsha last week, for which a suspect has been arrested.
The Minister vowed that they could not just add to statistics, and that here must be justice.
According to reports, Ndlebe’s daughter Nondumiso, 47, went to visit her mother on Saturday morning, but instead made the gruesome discovery of her burning body in her room. Ndlebe had started showing signs of dementia, and her daughters were in the process of finding her an old age home.
Unrelatedly, after visiting a shebeen last week, Sinovuyo disappeared after leaving with the 30-year-old suspect. The suspect initially denied any knowledge or involvement and actually accompanied the family to people he said he saw Sinovuyo leave the shebeen with in Makhaza. After Sinovuyo’s cellphone was found at the suspect’s home, police went back and arrested him, whereupon they discovered a bloody towel. Sinovuyo’s body was then found, hours later, in an abandoned shack also belonging to the suspect.
The Minister said, “I want to condemn the actions of the people who committed these heinous acts in the strongest possible terms. It is people like this, people who carry out these gruesome acts of gender-based violence, who rob our women of living out their freedom. It is an attack on humanity, and we cannot accept it. We will not accept this.”
Minister Fritz said, “we continue to work with the South African Police Service, the City of Cape Town Metro Police, all our neighbourhood watch structures and all other stakeholders, to halt the ongoing violence suffered by our communities. We are in the final stages of deploying another 250 LEAP Officers on 1 July 2021, and we look forward to that because that will bolster our efforts even further.”
Minister Fritz added: “I will also ask our GBV Desk at the Court Watching Brief Unit to keep a close eye on both these cases. It is early days in the investigation and we must also give the SAPS a fair opportunity to conduct thorough investigations; and where the CWB can assist the SAPS, I will certainly ask them to ensure that they do.”
Minister Fritz concluded: “We are resolute in halting the violence perpetrated against our women and children. We work with young people all the time, and every time a young person such as Sinovuyo is killed so senselessly and in such a depraved way, it affects me because I see a young person, full of life and energy, with so much to offer in building our society, taken away from us. A flame is extinguished. And a similar point must be made about our oumas and our gogos: they need to be able to live out their days in peace. They should not have to live in the fear of potentially being victims of these heinous acts.
“Every single one of our women and children have human dignity, and we will not stop until we bring an end to violence.”
Wade Seale
Tel: 021 483 6326
Cell: 072 889 8122
Email: Wade.Seale@westerncape.gov.za