Members of Gatvol, an informal settlement in Heidedal, say their worst fears have been realised after the body of a 50-year-old woman was discovered in a nearby stream last week Thursday.
According to Jwalane Mokhele, a resident of the Heidedal settlement, two teenage boys discovered the body just after 16:00. “The two boys said they were sitting in the area to smoke and they saw a body in the stream, but initially thought it was a doll or something. As they got closer to the body, they realised it was a person and they then began screaming for help. That’s when we all gathered to see what had happened,” Mokhele says.
Another community member, Lemohang Lekoeneha, who also heard the screams and went to the stream to see what had happened, says he then called the police as he and others stood shocked at the sight of the dead body.
“When I got to the scene, I could not see what exactly was happening. Many people were looking at the body without touching it and no one seemed to know what had happened to the woman. We found the woman face down in the water and I called the police,” Lekoeneha says.
Police arrived shortly after his call and took the body out of the water. From what he could see, the woman was light in complexion and seemed to be in her late forties to mid-fifties.
Though nothing has been confirmed by the police, the community is speculating that the deceased was a resident of Rocklands township and not a Heidedal resident.
Members of the community have expressed their shock and fear as they say the community is a tight-knit one and crime is minimal in the area. Lekoeneha, who has been living in the settlement for over a year now, says he is shocked at the incident and does not believe that the perpetrators of this act are from the Gatvol community.
Police spokesperson, Peter Kareli, was unable to comment on the matter. –Â Pulane Choane
pulane@centralmediagroup.co.za
