For one eMalahleni resident, the Sabbath was anything but a day of rest.
On May 19, at approximately 14:00, Maureen Scheepers, South African Community Crime Watch (SACCW) Operations Coordinator received a call from a concerned community member who reported seeing a woman lying next to the side of Merriedale Avenue, near the new Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses.
The woman told Scheepers that she believed that the woman had been raped as she was inconsolable, but that she didn’t want to get up from where she was lying amongst the dust, briars and grass.
SACCW immediately put a call through to ER24, who rushed to the scene only to find the woman still lying exactly where the community member had described her to be.
The police upon arrival cordoned off the area where the woman had been found.
ER24 stabilized the woman and transported her to hospital.
It was established that the woman had allegedly been abducted by her rapist, raped and then left for dead at the side of the road.
Sunday’s repugnant rape was not the only horrific sexual assault that took place in eMalahleni over the past week.
On Wednesday, May 15, a woman was busy cooking dinner in Klarinet Extension 8.
Her children were playing outside, and everything seemed to be right with the world.
By 20:00, the woman’s children had still not come in for dinner; and she decided to go looking for them as it was unusual for them to stay out so late.
The woman found her son, *Thomas and asked him where his sister *Thumi was.
Thomas explained that Thumi and one of her friends had gone with a man who had asked them to go call someone for him at one of the community members’ homes.
The woman immediately flew into a panic, frantically searching for her daughter – even going so far as to go look at the house where Thomas had told her that Thumi had gone to call someone for the strange man; but she wasn’t there.
Close to home, the woman suddenly saw her daughter come running towards her.
The woman and her daughter weren’t home for long before her daughter told her the harrowing tale of her ordeal – the daughter alleged that the strange man who had asked for her help ended up dragging her into the bushes close to her house, where he proceeded to force her to undress before raping her.
In both incidents cases were opened at Witbank Police, but no arrests have been made at the time that this article was penned.
Any persons with information pertaining to these heinous crimes are encouraged to phone Witbank Police on 013 655 5052.
*Names changed to protect the identity of victims of sexual crimes.
