Support for grieving Khayelitsha family
Capetonians from across the city showed they support to the family of 19-year-old rape and murder victim Sinoxolo Mafevuka.
|||Cape Town - Capetonians from across the city have dug deep into their pockets to raise R50 000 as a reward for any information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the death of 19-year-old rape and murder victim Sinoxolo Mafevuka.
Three men, one her boyfriend, were reportedly taken in for police questioning, but later released.
Police also questioned a woman friend of Mafevuka, according to family members who said they hoped arrests would be made soon.
Supporters and friends gathered on Saturday at the Site B Police Station in Khayelitsha, and then walked to the communal toilet in Town Two’s Blowey section, where Mafevuka’s naked body was found on March 2.
Residents said she was found naked, “with her head stuffed into the toilet bowl, with her lower body facing the door”.
Emotional community member Zukiswa Tshweni said on Saturday that she knew she could be victimised by the community, but could no longer be silent about about the murder.
“There are people who live just metres away from the toilets, surely somebody heard something? But because the community is so scared of criminals, nobody said or did anything and that is why Sinoxolo is dead.”
The teen was last seen by her family nearly two weeks ago on Tuesday evening when she left to go to the toilet about 100m from her home. The SST section, where Mafevuka lived, has no toilets.
On Saturday her mother Nowethu Mafevuka said she was overwhelmed by the support and surprised that people “came from so many places to offer comfort”.
She added she had not yet made peace with her daughter’s death.
“I just want to bury my child and know that she is no more, so that I can move on from this whole ordeal because it is too painful.”
Century City resident Kerry Nelson set up a Facebook page to call people to come together in support of the Mafevuka family.
Nelson said that while speaking to her boyfriend about the murder of Tokai teenager Franziska Blöchlinger, “he asked me if I had heard about the Khayelitsha woman, and I hadn’t heard anything and that was actually the catalyst for today’s event”.
“Khayelitsha has gotten so used to murder and such crimes they have lost hope, and the will to stand up against it,” she said. Flowers were laid at the door of the toilet where Mafevuka’s body was found.
There are only 12 communal toilets servicing scores of SST and Blowey residents. The toilets are on an open field with no lights and a few homes close by.
The community of the two sections also joined in to pay their respects and lauded the people who had come from afar to honour the teen’s memory, including from Wynberg, Tokai and Claremont. Joanne Peers, from Claremont, said she was “struck by the action and reaction for Franziska in contrast to Sinoxolo”.
“I was so hurt by the way her dignity was taken from her. The way South Africans respond to crimes on children should be the same,” she said.
Mafevuka will be buried at her Eastern Cape home in Centane village on Saturday.
asanda.sokanyile@inl.co.za
Sunday Argus