Publications
Partners
The two children left their shack homes for different reasons – one went to buy bread, the other to fetch wood – but both never came back. Their families found their bodies sprawled in the street minutes later.
The two lived in different areas of Lichtenburg in the North West, but their deaths came two hours apart.
Bubbly 17-year-old Tina Mothobi had insisted on going to fetch wood, her family’s only source of heat for cooking, with her sister on Tuesday morning.
Moments later, her mother rushed to a spot where her last-born child had been hit by a private vehicle on Ottosdal-Lichtenburg road, which runs alongside Blydeville township, where the family lives.
“I arrived there and it was confirmed that it was Tina. She was gone and they would not let me see her. I had refused to let her join her sister to go fetch wood, but she forced me to let her go,” said her mother, Louisa Mothobi.
Louisa said Tina was “mentally challenged and struggled with her speech”. She was a pupil at Reatlegile Special School in Itsoseng.
The accident happened just after 10am on Tuesday. While the Mothobi family and the community were still coming to terms with the loss of the teenager, death struck again, leaving another family in grief.
About three kilometres away in Boikhutso township, also in Lichtenburg, eight-year-old Rethabile Setlhotlha was sent to buy bread from a nearby tuck shop when he was hit by a police vehicle on the main road that cuts through the township and runs along the informal settlement in which his family lives.
As his family members mourned his death, they found themselves in the midst of a volatile situation when two police vehicles and an ambulance were allegedly set alight by angry community members.
Read: 'He went to buy bread and never came back home': Chaos erupts as family mourns child's death
“We were sitting outside the house when we suddenly heard a loud sound which went out like something just got crushed. Then we received the news … Rethabile had just been hit by a police car,” said family spokesperson Gomolemo Boikanyo.
“We went to the scene and were still concentrating on his body when the atmosphere changed around us. Vehicles were on fire, people were running amok and all we could do was move the boy’s body a little bit ... away from the street so that we could be out of the commotion.”
Police said a traffic vehicle was pelted with stones and three police officers and two paramedics were later taken to hospital for medical attention. It was not said if they were seriously injured.
North West police spokesperson Brigadier Sabata Mokgwabone said several people were arrested during the in the protest, which was triggered by the incident.
It was only after the violence made headlines that the deaths attracted the attention of provincial government officials.
A delegation led by North West Premier Job Mokgoro visited the two families on Wednesday.
By then, calm had retuned to the areas. Tow trucks were loading the burnt-out shells of an ambulance and two vehicles on to their flatbeds as Mokgoro and others walked to the Setlhotlha family shack.
The premier promised the families that his government would assist them during their time of bereavement. He abandoned his Covid-19 coronavirus programme for the day to come and see the families and offer the government’s condolences.
“We have appointed a team to work with the families and assist them. We’re in this together. It is our loss and we’re going to be there for the families in this difficult time,” Mokgoro said.
| |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
