TODAY I am ashamed to call myself an East Londoner. I have been witness to a city of people ready to devour their own children. I have seen how cruel my fellow neighbours, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers can be.
On Sunday morning they cut short the life of a member of their own community, accusing him of being part of an imaginary kidnapping gang.
Over the past few days my colleagues and I at the Daily Dispatch have made every effort to use the pages of this newspaper to dispel the rumour about a child-snatching ring operating in our city.
Unfortunately our message did not reach those responsible for killing Mbulelo Mtati, a 23-yearold matriculant from Nompumelelo township.
He was killed while on his way to prepare for his matric exam. His only crime was to have a schoolbag on his back. His assailants accused him of carrying a stolen baby in it.
But Mtati was no child-snatcher. He was a hard-working young man.
All he had inside the schoolbag were old bottles that he had collected to sell in order to put food on the table for him and his unemployed mother. This unnecessary death should break all our hearts.
What pains me even further is that this killing happened despite repeated assurances by the police that no children had been kidnapped in East London since the rumour started spreading.
We still do not know how the rumour mill ignited and how the fabrication reached the proportions it did, but towards the end of last week the allegations had taken on a life of their own and were spreading like wildfire. They were repeated through word of mouth, broadcast in chatrooms and through chain text messages, Facebook posts and on Twitter.
Principals, fearing for the safety of their pupils, shut their school gates and called parents to fetch their children. The rumour made dinner table conversations for days.
It was talked about in shopping malls. Pastors included it in their sermons on Sunday.
People from as far afield as Johannesburg spoke about it as if they were intimately involved in what was happening in our city.
A woman on Facebook on Friday morning spoke about how traumatised she was after watching two young children being thrown into two refuse bags near Terminus Street. When we confronted her, her story changed. She had simply heard other people talking about it.
Her post went up round about the same time that an angry mob attacked two men near Terminus Street in East London’s CBD. They, too, were accused of stealing children.
Today they are nursing serious head injuries – lucky to be alive.
This behaviour must stop. We call on the police to leave no stone unturned in getting to the bottom of this matter.
Whoever started the rumour must be brought to book, for Mtati’s sake.
To Mtati, we are so sorry. We are sorry that we were not able to save you. We are sorry that we did not fight harder and longer to debunk the rumour. We are also sorry that our message did not reach the community of Nompumelelo.
Residents of East London need to hang their heads in shame. This is what happens when people behave in a reckless and irresponsible fashion. — Editor-inChief
EDITORIAL OPINION
TODAY I am ashamed to call myself an East Londoner. I have been witness to a city of people ready to devour their own children. I have seen how cruel my fellow neighbours, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers can be.
On Sunday morning they cut short the life of a member of their own community, accusing him of being part of an imaginary kidnapping gang.
Over the past few days my colleagues and I at the Daily Dispatch have made every effort to use the pages of this newspaper to dispel the rumour about a child-snatching ring operating in our city.
Unfortunately our message did not reach those responsible for killing Mbulelo Mtati, a 23-yearold matriculant from Nompumelelo township.
He was killed while on his way to prepare for his matric exam. His only crime was to have a schoolbag on his back. His assailants accused him of carrying a stolen baby in it.
But Mtati was no child-snatcher. He was a hard-working young man.
All he had inside the schoolbag were old bottles that he had collected to sell in order to put food on the table for him and his unemployed mother. This unnecessary death should break all our hearts.
What pains me even further is that this killing happened despite repeated assurances by the police that no children had been kidnapped in East London since the rumour started spreading.
We still do not know how the rumour mill ignited and how the fabrication reached the proportions it did, but towards the end of last week the allegations had taken on a life of their own and were spreading like wildfire. They were repeated through word of mouth, broadcast in chatrooms and through chain text messages, Facebook posts and on Twitter.
Principals, fearing for the safety of their pupils, shut their school gates and called parents to fetch their children. The rumour made dinner table conversations for days.
It was talked about in shopping malls. Pastors included it in their sermons on Sunday.
People from as far afield as Johannesburg spoke about it as if they were intimately involved in what was happening in our city.
A woman on Facebook on Friday morning spoke about how traumatised she was after watching two young children being thrown into two refuse bags near Terminus Street. When we confronted her, her story changed. She had simply heard other people talking about it.
Her post went up round about the same time that an angry mob attacked two men near Terminus Street in East London’s CBD. They, too, were accused of stealing children.
Today they are nursing serious head injuries – lucky to be alive.
This behaviour must stop. We call on the police to leave no stone unturned in getting to the bottom of this matter.
Whoever started the rumour must be brought to book, for Mtati’s sake.
To Mtati, we are so sorry. We are sorry that we were not able to save you. We are sorry that we did not fight harder and longer to debunk the rumour. We are also sorry that our message did not reach the community of Nompumelelo.
Residents of East London need to hang their heads in shame. This is what happens when people behave in a reckless and irresponsible fashion. — Editor-inChief
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