Orphanage mourns lost children

Dzulani Children Care Centre in Dindela Section held a special ceremony on Saturday, March 4 in honour of three lost children.

Nkanyiso Nelukau went missing in April 2005 when he was 15 years old. This inspired his mother, Nelly Nelukau, to open the orphanage.

Two other children who are sorely missed by the orphanage are Kutloano Dlozi, who died in March 2014 when she was only five months old, and Themba Shabangu, who died at the age of 16 in 2014.

Nelly Nelukau explained what happened with her son Nkanyiso.

“When Nkanyiso disappeared we pleaded with the community members to help us find him. We even asked the newspapers to help us look for him but it did not work.

“A few months after he disappeared we were told that there was a boy who was hit by a car and died on the spot, and that the boy’s body was taken to the government mortuary. We went to the mortuary to identify the body, only to find out that the body had been buried. We asked for the permission to exhume the body so that we might bury Nkanyiso by ourselves. We were granted the permission to do so. We even prepared the funeral for him.

“When we were supposed to take the body from the mortuary to bury it, we discovered that it was not Nkanyiso. Then we decided to give up looking for him, hoping that when the time is right he will return. Until today, we don’t know what happened to him,” laments Nelukau.

As for the young Dlozi, Nelukau said she was a very special child.

“Even though she lived a very short life she had a huge impact on the lives of many people. When she was only three months old we discovered that she had been born with a liver-related disease. Two months later she passed away,” said Nelukau with tears in her eyes. She said the doctors tried their best to save her but they lost the fight.

Nelukau said Shabangu was born HIV positive and was very ill.

“He fought the illness from birth. He was the strongest young boy I ever met, because he managed to fight the disease until it defeated him at the age of 16, in 2014,” recalls Nelukau.

The ceremony was well attended by a large number of community members, who praised Nelukau’s work. Children from the centre were also present, as well as councillors from the EFF, the IFP and the ANC.