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Tom said it was only when it started to get dark that he realized that Aqhama had not returned yet and then went to knock on his neighbor’s door.
He wasn’t home, so she came back a little later, but he still wasn’t there.
“I stayed awake, worried, but then I was hopeful that she had gone to visit her father or my sister who live in the area.
“But when morning came and Aqhama’s mother came back [she had been out for the night]I asked him to go find her, ”he said.
Mandisa, 25, said she was hopeful her second oldest son was still alive when she went to find her on Monday last week.
However, when one of the children in the area told a relative of hers that they had seen the man enter a toilet, which the family shared with him, and act suspiciously, she became seriously concerned.
Mandisa said police had found the alleged killer’s bloody clothes in the toilet.
She said she hadn’t been too concerned before that as the community was very close.
“I mean, we all live together and so far nothing so tragic and horrible has happened in Weston because we all know each other,” Mandisa said.
The family of five lives in a small one-room hut, where some sleep on the double bed carefully placed in the corner while the rest sleep on the floor.
Mandisa said the man had moved into the nearby hut, which belonged to his sister, no more than two months ago.
“The house was closed until he moved here about two months ago, and we have been good neighbors,” he said.
On Monday, a member of the Fundiswa Bam family angrily pointed at the suspect’s wooden hut and said it had to be demolished.
“It can’t be that every time Aqhama’s mother goes out, she remembers where this man slept and where her daughter was probably killed.
“I pray that the death penalty returns in time for his sentence because we cannot continue to live like women and children … living as if we are being persecuted,” Bam said.
Kouga Township District 13 Councilor Margareth Peters arrived at the Tom’s hut on Monday with an official from Sarah Baartman District Human Settlements Department.
Peters said that upon hearing the devastating news, he made calls for help from anyone willing to help the family.
“Today officials from the district municipality have arrived to obtain the details so that the family can try to solve them with a temporary structure.
“In the meantime, I’m looking for a parcel of land where that structure would be placed because the property that their hut is on right now doesn’t belong to them,” Peters said.
HeraldLIVE
