Anti-substance abuse activist stabbed to death by a junkie
The drug user, well-known to the activist and his colleagues, allegedly did not even try to run away, but instead watched him bleed to death in front of kids.
An anti-substance abuse fighter has paid the ultimate price with his life after being fatally stabbed at the Old Drill Hall Skate Park in Johannesburg CBD, City Buzz reports.
His only crime was a polite request to a drug addict, well-known to him and his colleagues, to choose a secluded spot in which to inject himself with his ‘favourite poison’ instead of injecting himself in front of the children the activist was taking care of on the corner of Twist and Delvers streets.
Kabelo Refilwe Makwa, 31, better known to the young boys and girls and youthful and enthusiastic skaters and regular users of the facility as ‘KB’, had left his home that fateful day to do what he loved most – helping vulnerable children stay away from drugs and other forms of mischief.
According to Lucky Dlangalala, a colleague of KB, Makwa bled to death in front of the very children he so dearly loved. “We wish we could get some counselling for them,” said Dlangalala.
KB provided the children with an opportunity to fight boredom with an activity they loved the most – skating. Little did he know that on this fateful Saturday afternoon, his life would be cut short by none other than a user of the very substance he so desperately wanted to protect the children from.
READ MORE:Drug dealer nabbed with R222k worth of drugs
Some of the children at the Old Drill Hall Skate Park.
Makwa, from eMalahleni, in Mpumalanga. who would have turned 32 on May 23, founded the One-Love Skate Expo in 2010.
A professional skateboarder himself, KB had started the expo to help fight the rampant use of drugs, which he often referred to as a “scourge that was savagely consuming our youth”.
When KB noticed the junkie injecting himself in front of children, some as young as four, he quickly approached him and asked him to find a secluded place outside the skate park to shoot up.
“Not in front of the children, my brother,” Dlangalala reported KB as saying to the junkie, who turned around and allegedly stabbed him in the shoulder, close to his neck, causing KB to bleed to death.
The junkie, who is well-known to KB and his colleagues, allegedly did not even try to run away, but instead watched him as he bled to death and was later picked up by the police.
KB, who leaves behind his eight-year-old daughter, Zanokuhle, will be buried in eMalahleni on May 27.
READ MORE:
– Caxton News Service
For more news your way, follow The Citizen on Facebook and Twitter.
For more news your way
Download our app and read this and other great stories on the move. Available for Android and iOS.
