She had moved to eMalahleni with her boyfriend, where they resided in a guesthouse, and she was still unfamiliar with the suburb and surrounding areas.
Her boyfriend was still working his night shift and feeling a little uneasy in the quiet room, Sarah put on the TV for distraction, thinking she imagined the sound that woke her.
Then she heard it again. The strange noise that she never heard before.
As she got up to take a look outside, she froze in shock as she found two eyes looking directly at her through the bedroom window. The eyes belonged to a man who, moments later, clambered in through the window. Sarah was rooted to the spot in fear as the suspect moved towards her.
“Shut up and sleep!” the man spat at her, when she finally found her voice and asked in a small, panicky tone: “what do you want?”
Not daring to argue with the threatening man, Sarah laid back down quietly on her bed.
The suspect moved around the bedroom and then spoke to Sarah again asking her questions, such as: who else was staying at the guesthouse. At the mention of her boyfriend, the man fixated on the later – prying for more information on him and asking whether her boyfriend kept a firearm in the room. Even though Sarah assured the man that there was no firearm in the bedroom, he started searching for one anyway.
Sarah watched as the stranger, with his small beady eyes in a dark oval-shaped face, searched through her drawers and belongings.
Etched out in fear in her mind was the dark figure in old, worn-out jeans and a blue brand-name jersey. He’s Pedi. Sarah was sure his accent belonged to that of a resident from the Limpopo province.
After a while, the suspect ordered her to get up off the bed and find him a bag. In a Nike sport bag, he stuffed in all the valuables he could find, which included: a laptop, a pair of sneakers and Timberland boots.
Just as Sarah grew hopeful that the man would just take the items with the bag and leave, he turned to her saying that he knew there was no one else at the guesthouse and that they were alone.
He expressed disgust for ‘Zulu-men’ (like Sarah’s boyfriend) and then told her that he was going to rape her.
He forced her to undress and raped her as she cried, knowing that no one would hear her.
The man had used a condom, which Sarah later realised was to prevent anyone to discover and possibly trace his DNA back to him.
After he had finished with her he told her to dress and find the keys for her boyfriend’s car outside.
He told her that he would drive out with her and drop her off somewhere and be on his way.
Sarah pleaded with the man to just take the car and leave her where she was. Her rapist forced her to walk outside with him, ordering her to open the front gate.
Sarah’s heart leaped as she saw security guards in a white van just outside in the street near the guest house. As she opened the gate, she took a chance and started screaming at the top of her lungs for the whole street to hear.
No help came from the men in the van, so she ran towards a nearby neighbour for help.
The suspect fled the scene without taking the vehicle, leaving behind a traumatised victim.
Sarah reported the crime at the Witbank Police Station, but fears that she may never find retribution in what was taken from her.
*Sarah is not the actual name of the rape victim. An alias was used to protect the identity of the person involved.
