“Please save me.”
This is the desperate plea of a wheelchair-bound double amputee pensioner in the Eastern Cape, who says she is being beaten, verbally abused and cursed as a witch.
Nozipho Mzayifani, 64, alleged the witchcraft smear was started by a drug-addicted relative.
Mzayifani, who lives on her own in an RDP house in Tyutyu village outside King William’s Town, says she has had bricks thrown at her, and has been slapped and punched.
Several days ago she was hit on the head with an empty beer bottle and on Thursday Mzayifani showed Saturday Dispatch a gash in her head caused by the attack.
She pleaded with the authorities and her family to step in and “save me. I have had enough. I have suffered in silence for too long. I want to expose them and if they want to kill me, I am not scared to die”.
Her “misery” started a few years ago when the drug-addicted relative would call her out into the street, shouting that she was a witch. “He used to beat me and when his marriage ended he accused me of causing it to end. Soon his friends started calling me a witch and their friends also called me a witch,” she said.
Mzayifani said her right leg had to be amputated in 2007 after it become infected with gangrene.
She said in 2014 one of her son’s friends beat her on her left leg with a plank during a verbal altercation.
“The wounds become infected and in 2015 my right leg was amputated.”
Speaking about the recent attack in which she sustained the open gash to the head, Mzayifani said she was sitting inside her house when two drunk women walked out of the tavern opposite her house and started swearing at her.
“They called me all sorts of ugly names and when I swore back at them one of them walked over and hit me on the head with an empty beer bottle.”
Mzayifani said she was taken to hospital after a community member came to her rescue.
A community member, Bongiwe Qhonono said Mzayifani’s plight was “really sad. It’s true that some people don’t like her and call her a witch and her just sits there and watches while this is happening”.
One of Mzayifani’s relatives, Nontsapho Rayile, said she last saw Mzayifani in January this year and was not aware of the name-calling and attacks. “I am shocked to find her in this condition with a wound to her head. As the family we will have to sit down and discuss what to do.”
Spokesman for the department of social development, Gcobani Maswana, said: “We live in communities with church leaders and community leaders; why has no one reported this? Even though we are short of social workers, cases of abuse such as this one are regarded as high risk and need to be attended to.”
He asked for Mzayifani’s contact details, saying the department would conduct an investigation. — rethal@dispatch.co.za
Abused gogo pleads to be rescued
This is the desperate plea of a wheelchair-bound double amputee pensioner in the Eastern Cape, who says she is being beaten, verbally abused and cursed as a witch.
Nozipho Mzayifani, 64, alleged the witchcraft smear was started by a drug-addicted relative.
Mzayifani, who lives on her own in an RDP house in Tyutyu village outside King William’s Town, says she has had bricks thrown at her, and has been slapped and punched.
Several days ago she was hit on the head with an empty beer bottle and on Thursday Mzayifani showed Saturday Dispatch a gash in her head caused by the attack.
She pleaded with the authorities and her family to step in and “save me. I have had enough. I have suffered in silence for too long. I want to expose them and if they want to kill me, I am not scared to die”.
Her “misery” started a few years ago when the drug-addicted relative would call her out into the street, shouting that she was a witch. “He used to beat me and when his marriage ended he accused me of causing it to end. Soon his friends started calling me a witch and their friends also called me a witch,” she said.
Mzayifani said her right leg had to be amputated in 2007 after it become infected with gangrene.
She said in 2014 one of her son’s friends beat her on her left leg with a plank during a verbal altercation.
“The wounds become infected and in 2015 my right leg was amputated.”
Speaking about the recent attack in which she sustained the open gash to the head, Mzayifani said she was sitting inside her house when two drunk women walked out of the tavern opposite her house and started swearing at her.
“They called me all sorts of ugly names and when I swore back at them one of them walked over and hit me on the head with an empty beer bottle.”
Mzayifani said she was taken to hospital after a community member came to her rescue.
A community member, Bongiwe Qhonono said Mzayifani’s plight was “really sad. It’s true that some people don’t like her and call her a witch and her just sits there and watches while this is happening”.
One of Mzayifani’s relatives, Nontsapho Rayile, said she last saw Mzayifani in January this year and was not aware of the name-calling and attacks. “I am shocked to find her in this condition with a wound to her head. As the family we will have to sit down and discuss what to do.”
Spokesman for the department of social development, Gcobani Maswana, said: “We live in communities with church leaders and community leaders; why has no one reported this? Even though we are short of social workers, cases of abuse such as this one are regarded as high risk and need to be attended to.”
He asked for Mzayifani’s contact details, saying the department would conduct an investigation. — rethal@dispatch.co.za
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