Buffalo City police are investigating two separate murder dockets after finding the bodies of two East London women at the weekend.
The body of Nothandekile Vellem, 47, was discovered in Greenfields suburb on Sunday. Her boyfriend has since been arrested.
East London police spokeswoman Warrant Officer Hazel Mqala said Vellem was apparently assaulted with a sharp object.
She said the suspect, 53, is in police custody ahead of being charged with murder. The man, originally from King William’s Town’s eMtyholo village, had been living with Vellem for nine years at Ententeni informal settlement.
She said when asked to produce a murder weapon the man produced a slender cane from a plant.
Hours earlier, Gonubie police retrieved the body of a woman at bushes in Quenera, near Mzamomhle settlement.
A man looking for firewood made the gruesome find. The body was tangled in wire. The deceased woman has been identified as Buyiswa Mtingwana Hokisi, 44, a domestic worker from Mzamomhle. She was last seen on Friday at 7am, when she left for work. The family raised the alarm 12 hours later, when she failed to return home. Her aunt Ntombencinci Ntshingwana, 53, said she had been shocked to hear from Hokisi’s workplace at Gonubie Palms that Hokisi had not showed up for work that day. “We knew something was wrong and we started searching for her .”
Ntshingwana said she was worried about the wellbeing of Hokisi’s mentally challenged child, who is at a government institution in Peddie.
Hokisi’s former brother-in-law, Thabiso Hokisi, believes she was abducted on the Gonubie gravel road on her way to work and killed at the roadside squatter camp of Zweni before her body was dumped.
“The search party combed the area from Friday until early hours of Sunday. I believe she was dumped there mid-morning on Sunday after the news of her disappearance was announced by community leaders with a loudhailer. The assailants must have heard the announcement and decided to dump the body there at the exact spot we had covered few hours before.”
Hokisi is survived by three children – a daughter Aphiwe, 21, and sons Siyabonga, 19, and Phelo, 15.
Ntshingwana said the woman’s frail mother, Mavis Kula, was struggling to cope with the loss.
Mqala said that three weeks ago the burnt body of a 19-year-old woman was found not far from Hokisi’s body.
Gonubie Community Police Forum chairman Mncekeleli Molose said drug abuse was the driving force behind the high crime rate in the area.
“I will meet with the station commander of Gonubie police station so that we can take drastic steps,” he said, adding that with assistance from BCM they would also into destroying abandoned shacks in Mzamomhle, which he said were used as crime dens.
Masimanyane Women’s Rights International spokeswoman Lesley-Ann Foster said police and community need to work closer more than ever to try and prevent the “crisis”.
“We have always had a crisis in our country but there is a spike in a number of women killings and it is terrifying all of us.”
Foster said Masimanyane would launch a femicide watch to document all the killings of women to assist police with true statistics.
“Many women’s killings are not recorded. This has to stop. It is the responsibility of the criminal justice system to offer security. These killings can be prevented, like the woman in Mzamomhle was abducted, raped and killed because she was walking on a road without streetlights.”
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe announced at the weekend that killings nationwide of women and children would be on top of the ANC agenda at the national conference. — malibongwed@dispatch.co.za
Two women killed in East London
The body of Nothandekile Vellem, 47, was discovered in Greenfields suburb on Sunday. Her boyfriend has since been arrested.
East London police spokeswoman Warrant Officer Hazel Mqala said Vellem was apparently assaulted with a sharp object.
She said the suspect, 53, is in police custody ahead of being charged with murder. The man, originally from King William’s Town’s eMtyholo village, had been living with Vellem for nine years at Ententeni informal settlement.
She said when asked to produce a murder weapon the man produced a slender cane from a plant.
Hours earlier, Gonubie police retrieved the body of a woman at bushes in Quenera, near Mzamomhle settlement.
A man looking for firewood made the gruesome find. The body was tangled in wire. The deceased woman has been identified as Buyiswa Mtingwana Hokisi, 44, a domestic worker from Mzamomhle. She was last seen on Friday at 7am, when she left for work. The family raised the alarm 12 hours later, when she failed to return home. Her aunt Ntombencinci Ntshingwana, 53, said she had been shocked to hear from Hokisi’s workplace at Gonubie Palms that Hokisi had not showed up for work that day. “We knew something was wrong and we started searching for her .”
Ntshingwana said she was worried about the wellbeing of Hokisi’s mentally challenged child, who is at a government institution in Peddie.
Hokisi’s former brother-in-law, Thabiso Hokisi, believes she was abducted on the Gonubie gravel road on her way to work and killed at the roadside squatter camp of Zweni before her body was dumped.
“The search party combed the area from Friday until early hours of Sunday. I believe she was dumped there mid-morning on Sunday after the news of her disappearance was announced by community leaders with a loudhailer. The assailants must have heard the announcement and decided to dump the body there at the exact spot we had covered few hours before.”
Hokisi is survived by three children – a daughter Aphiwe, 21, and sons Siyabonga, 19, and Phelo, 15.
Ntshingwana said the woman’s frail mother, Mavis Kula, was struggling to cope with the loss.
Mqala said that three weeks ago the burnt body of a 19-year-old woman was found not far from Hokisi’s body.
Gonubie Community Police Forum chairman Mncekeleli Molose said drug abuse was the driving force behind the high crime rate in the area.
“I will meet with the station commander of Gonubie police station so that we can take drastic steps,” he said, adding that with assistance from BCM they would also into destroying abandoned shacks in Mzamomhle, which he said were used as crime dens.
Masimanyane Women’s Rights International spokeswoman Lesley-Ann Foster said police and community need to work closer more than ever to try and prevent the “crisis”.
“We have always had a crisis in our country but there is a spike in a number of women killings and it is terrifying all of us.”
Foster said Masimanyane would launch a femicide watch to document all the killings of women to assist police with true statistics.
“Many women’s killings are not recorded. This has to stop. It is the responsibility of the criminal justice system to offer security. These killings can be prevented, like the woman in Mzamomhle was abducted, raped and killed because she was walking on a road without streetlights.”
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe announced at the weekend that killings nationwide of women and children would be on top of the ANC agenda at the national conference. — malibongwed@dispatch.co.za
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