Angella Johnson
Mouths gaping in shock, Bongani Ngubeni and Mpho Lebese stared at their faces on the front page of the newspaper. “Missing children: Muti-killings of 13 children feared”, screamed the headline. The boys, who live within metres of each other, were idly playing in the street, unaware that a massive police hunt had been launched to find them.
Orange Farm police had only to make a 10- minute drive from their offices on the outskirts of the sprawling township to find two of the children on their newly compiled missing-register — presumed victims of sangomas seeking human body parts to be used as muti ingredients — safe in the bosom of their families.
“I wonder just how many other children have returned home safely but were never taken off the list,” pondered Sarah Lebese, as she eyed the newspaper.
She had reported her 13-year-old son missing on December 30 last year after he failed to come home from playing football with friends the previous evening. “I went to the police station in the morning with a photograph and they said they would come and search the area, but no one ever came.” Mpho explained that he had been on his way home at about 5pm when two black women in a red and white Opel Kadett stopped and asked directions to a butcher’s shop. The women suggested it would be easier if he got in the vehicle and took them there, and promised to drop him home afterwards.
He was not scared because, although his mother had warned him not to take lifts from strangers, he had assumed she meant men.
The women drove him to a cemetery at the other end of the township, ordered him out of the car and sped off. Alone and frightened of the dark, he ran out of the graveyard. It took him a day and a night to make his way home.
“He kept getting lost and was too scared to asked anyone the way,” said his mother. “He didn’t eat or drink the whole time.”
She believes the women had left him to be taken by someone and killed for muti. “I can only assume their timing was off and that’s what saved him from death.”
Her partner, Sydney Magasela, said he went to the police the next day and told them Mpho’s story. “I told everything to a Sergeant Tshabalala and he said he would cancel a call he had put in to the radio and television stations. He even said he would come to the house to return the photograph and check that everything was all right, but we never saw him.”
Down the dirt track, in her thatched rondavel, Regina Masetshaba-Kubeka was equally nonplussed to hear that her son Bongani was being sought by police, presumed dead.
Bongani (7) disappeared for one day last October. He had taken off to visit an aunt on the other side of the township without telling anyone and, as neither family had telephones, it was not until the next morning that he was brought back.
“I went to the police station myself and told them the same day he came home,” said Masetshaba-Kubeka. “This is so ridiculous. As you can see, he is very much alive. No one has come around to talk to us. If they thought he’s missing, why have they not come to take our statements? Now you can see why people in this area think the police do a very bad job.”
There have been numerous complaints over the years about the ineffectiveness of the Orange Farm police station, which is largely staffed by former apartheid kitskonstabels. Mostly semi-literate and trained to do little more than crowd control, they have been dubbed lazy incompetents by local people.
Tshabalala, the officer who is supposed to be in charge of the missing-persons list in the area, appears to have done little more than shove the children’s photographs into a drawer along with those of some 25 adults who disappeared from their homes.
It was only after angry calls from police headquarters this week that the numerous files (including those of Bongani and Mpho) were found scattered around the police station.
According to one of his colleagues, who did not want to be named, “most officers don’t like doing this kind of missing-persons job because it’s not seen as hard core. They would rather investigate more important crime cases like murder and robbery.”
Yet it is believed that of the estimated 1 300 children listed as missing in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, North-West and Northern Province over the past three years, most were aged between seven and 11.
Many were eventually found safe, some ended up pounding the pavements as street kids, but police believe a “substantial” proportion have been mutilated and used for muti. It has also been suggested that a number of missing kids may have been kidnapped and sexually abused.
Captain Thabang Letlala, representative of the Vaal Rand police, agreed that the township had been badly served by unskilled officers. “We are having problems there because these people do not have the right skills to do basic police investigative work, but attempts are being made to bring them up to speed.”
He argued another reason for the backlog was that parents would report a child missing, “then we never see them again, because they don’t usually come back until something happens like the murder of six- year-old Zanele Nongiza”.
But Zanele’s mother, Meklita Nongiza, complained that when she went to report that her daughter had been taken away by a strange man on January 3, the policeman had slapped her bottom and propositioned her. “I was very upset because I had gone there for help and they did nothing until last weekend [when parts of her decomposed body were found].”
Captain Letlala said an internal investigation had been launched to find out why police failed to look into reports of so many missing children. Despite his reassurance that a dragnet had already started to find these youngsters, he was still unaware on Thursday morning that at least two of the “victims” were at home.
Police appear to be concentrating their efforts on the area in the township where Zanele’s mutilated body parts were found, and have unearthed several bones. Inspector Tinus Oosthuizen, who is leading the inquiry, said forensic tests have to be carried out to determine whether the body parts are human or animal.
He said he intended to look into the cases of other missing Orange Farm children but has been hindered by a lack of staff. “We are only two or three people working on this and it is not the only crime that we have to handle.”