UPDATE: (Monday 7 October, 2019)
PINETOWN SAPS communications confirmed that a case had been opened and is being investigated.
The Highway Mail has also sent enquiries to the SAPS media communications office in the Western Cape.
Nomvula has been in contact with the Highway Mail but has declined to answer any questions about her facebook post until she is ready to do so.
She expressed anger at what had happened to her and said she had posted the description of her ordeal on Facebook purely to make people aware that danger is everywhere but was not prepared to give any further details. She has asked that her right to be left alone be respected and the Highway Mail has agreed to wait until she contacts us when she is ready.
How we reported the story last week:
A WOMAN in Pinetown said she is terrified that the narrow escape from alleged human traffickers, who she claims abducted her from a street in Pinetown, might not be over.
“I am currently really traumatized, I have opened a case of abduction and rape,” said Nomvula Masango said on her Facebook page. “My life may not really be safe cause we don’t know if these people will still try to find me or what.”
In the same post, which has been widely shared both on Facebook and Twitter since her ordeal this week, she alleged that the detective dealing with her case has told her the people involved must be very dangerous, “‘Cause they work with police and airlines,” she explained.
READ ALSO: Don’t be a victim of human trafficking – warns SAPS
The harrowing ordeal began for Nomvula on Monday, 30 September, when she was approached by two men and a woman on the street.
She said she was walking to Pinecrest Mall in Pinetown when she noticed the three were following her.
“The lady actually made it look like she was trying to help me,” she explained, adding that she trusted her because she was a female. “Only to find out, later on, she was part of the plan all along.”
Nomvula described being taken to a house where two other young girls were also being kept.
“One was in school uniform, and the other was just dressed in a skirt and a top,” she said.
She described how she was left in the room with the other two victims and managed to contact a friend using a small phone she had hidden in her underwear.
The friend, Sbonelo Zuma then put out the alert that she was missing on social media and said he also reported her missing.
Nomvula also described how she had then tried to contact a family member. However, the family member couldn’t hear her as she was so distraught and crying on the phone at that stage.
Raped
Her ordeal was made worse when the men returned, demanding the women undress so that they could, as she describes them saying, “Taste if the goods they got is good stuff!”
“We didn’t under dress the same time they had to physically hold us and beat us to finally do it. The two men managed to have the time of they lives with the three of us,” Nomvula said in her post on Facebook.
ALSO READ: Pinetown ‘grampa’ faces 17 charges for raping young boys
“I became really powerless, confused [and] didn’t really believe that was actually happening. As soon as they were done pleasing themselves they gave us wet clothes to clean ourselves as they made sure we actually wiped ourselves and asked us to dress up.”
Taken
The worst was, however, yet to come. Nomvula recounts in her post how she and the other two young women were then taken by car to King Shaka Airport.
She described in her now-viral post how each of them was held by one of the men as soon as they got to the airport.
“The guy who was holding me said to me if you decide to shout I will shoot you and I will only be caught and spend a few years [in] prison and you will be dead [he] smiled at me, so I tried really hard to act as normal as possible, ’cause I saw there’s no getting away.”
According to Nomvula, they bypassed the normal check-in process and went through another door where they were met by “two police officers and one lady dressed in the British airline uniform.”
Nomvula in her story then described how relieved she felt on seeing the police officers.
“I was happy when I saw the two officers,” she wrote. “I honestly believed they were gonna be caught [and] we were gonna go home safe.”
However, her relief was short-lived. As it soon became apparent to her that the two were involved with her abductors. She described in her post how they chatted with each other in a relaxed and friendly manner calling each other “bafo”.
Escape
Nomvula was fortunate not to be seated with the other two girls and their alleged abductors on the flight to Cape Town and managed to get help by speaking to a couple who were seated near her.
Fortunately, they believed her and intervened once their flight landed to get her to safety, but only as far as outside the airport. She then turned to another young lady she recognised from the flight who managed to arrange her a safe place to say overnight.
“The same lady then saw a post on Twitter of a missing person which was me,” wrote Nomvula in her post. “Then managed to get hold of my cousin in Cape Town and told her where I was… that’s how my cousin found me.”
Expressing her relief and thanks for everyone who helped her, Nomvula said she is very worried about what fate befell the others.
“I am just grateful to be alive to see another day. The one thing in my mind now is the two young girls I was with… We live in a very sick world. No woman is safe in South Africa,” she wrote on the public Facebook post.
She said what alarmed her the most was that the people involved were actually South Africans and that women seem to be part of the activities of the perpetrators.
“I am even scared to go in a taxi or even walk in the street because we live with sick people out here.”
Responses
Highway Mail reached out to some of the companies named in the description of the ordeal described by Nomvula.
Collin Naidoo, speaking for King Shaka International Airport, on behalf of the Aiport Company South Africa (ACSA), said they were ‘distressed’ by the account shared on Facebook by Nomvula.
“We certainly wish her strength as she recovers from the ordeal she has described. For such serious matters, a person’s first point of contact should always be the South African Police Services. They are the only investigative body with the authority and mandate to investigate crimes of this nature.”
Naidoo said King Shaka International Airport would cooperate with any SAPS investigation but said he couldn’t comment on allegations of airline staff, ground staff, nor police members being involved.
ALSO READ: Did you know all police stations must accept crime reports?
“With respect to the alleged involvement of airline staff, questions about this should be forwarded directly to the airline. The same goes for the alleged involvement of SAPS members and should be directed to SAPS.”
Willaim Smook, of Metropa Communications which act for Comair, also issued a statement.
“We will investigate this matter. Comair and its airline brands have a zero-tolerance policy on misconduct and crime, including human trafficking and modern slavery.”
“Our personnel are trained to look for signs of human trafficking and share knowledge with IATA and other airlines on combating it,” he added.
SAPS: KZN Media Centre has not responded to requests for comments at the time of publication of this story.
The Highway Mail will be following this story and will publish updates as and when it is able to verify information from reliable sources.
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