MSHOLOZI – Cooling off from the scorching sunlight ended tragically when a 10-year-old girl drowned in the local dam.
This happened on Sunday around 15:00 and the floating body of the Mozambican girl was retrieved from the water by passer-bys.According to them she was already dead. Members of the Section D residents which are mostly Mozambicans and Zimbabweans were left numb after the incident. Locals from nearby sections flocked to the scene where the motionless body of the young girl was covered with a material until the arrival of the law enforcers.
White River SAPS were the first to arrive on the scene and while trying to get statements from eye witnesses and the girl’s family they encountered communication problems as most of the residents spoke Portuguese and other languages not easily comprehended by the locals.
Trying to find out if the victim’s family were legal in the country the investigative officer on the scene W/O Thabede reminded foreign nationals of the importance of having valid passports wherever they are. “It would be easy for the state to assist to ferry the deceased’s body back to her country of origin provided she was legal in the country. But as things are, it would be difficult. You see when we say you must come into the country through the legal routes using passports we meant for such times,” he added.
Mpumalanga News learnt that the victim was only in the area to visit relatives. Locals on the site also raised suspicions that an evil ritual might have been done in the dam. Rumours are already making rounds about an unknown woman who was seen performing some rituals in the dam recently.
“How come this happens just a few days we saw a white van and a woman coming to this dam, lots of children play here every day and elders usually pass by. Even her body doesn’t look like someone who drowned, her stomach was flat,” they claimed.
Police opened an inquest docket and the deceased was certified dead on the scene by paramedics. Her body was ferried to a state mortuary by pathologists.
