A week after Lumka Mkhethwa, 5, fell to her death inside a toilet pit, her grieving parents and relatives still suspect that her death was no accident.
They say she was found with her panties still intact around her waist suggesting that she was not about to use the pit.
Secondly her limp body was found in a standing position down the pit toilet with both arms outstretched to her side. They believed that if she had fallen while trying to relieve herself, she would probably have hit the bottom of the pit either head first or on her back.
In addition, a village search party had looked for her at the same pit toilet and even used sticks to prod for a possible body at the bottom on three separate occasions on Monday.
Lumka, a Grade R pupil at Luna Senior Primary in Nyaka village outside Mbizana, was buried on Saturday.
She had died after falling into a pit toilet on Monday, according to Eastern Cape education authorities. Her body was plucked out of the pit toilet at around 8am last Tuesday.
The Mkhethwas came face-to-face with Eastern Cape education MEC Mandla Makupula yesterday when he paid the family a visit to express his condolences. He had first visited the school, where he held meetings behind closed doors with parents and staff before going to inspect the pit toilet.
While the parents appreciated the MEC’s visit, they later told the Daily Dispatch that they still had a lot of unanswered questions.
“When her body was taken out, her feet were standing straight and her arms were outstretched on her sides. It’s like someone had taken her and just dumped her inside that pit toilet,” said Lumka’s grandfather Mnyamezeli Jali, who was among those who had frantically searched for her.
“If she was going to the toilet to relieve herself, I would imagine that she would have had to take her panties off. But strangely, she was wearing her panties and her full school uniform.”
Lumka’s mother Nosive, 23, told a Dispatch team which accompanied the MEC to their village home, that when the young girl boarded a bakkie on Monday at around 7am, she had waved her goodbye as usual.
She and her father, Vuyani, 33, had also made it a habit of talking to each other on the phone every morning before school.
“She was bubbly and waved goodbye as she got onto the bakkie which we pay to take her and other children to school,” said Nosive, with tears welling.
“I had no idea that I would not see her again.”
She had told her father, who was working in Welkom, would bring her chips and yoghurt when he returned home.
Education authorities have publicly stated that the body was discovered by the school’s caretaker, but the Mkhethwas dismissed this, saying she was found by a group of pupils dispatched by principal Nkosiphendule Magidela to assist with the search.
Earlier in his visit to the family, Makupula promised them that a new block of toilets would be built for the Grade Rs at the school. The block, containing four pit toilets, would be demolished once an investigation by police had been completed.
“We have already approved a company to build the new toilets, which will be in full view of the teachers so that they can monitor the younger ones when they go in. Your child sacrificed her life so that others can get toilets,” he said.
Addressing the media at the school, Makupula, who described Lumka’s death as a tragic accident, said the teachers had told him that she had been at the school when pupils were served their daily school nutrition food.
He also absolved staff from any blame.
The MEC also dismissed suggestions that the department was building new toilets due to the tragedy, saying the pit toilets were still in a working condition.
The only reason they were building them again, he said, was to make sure they would be in view from the administration block so that children could be easily seen.
He also took a swipe at the media for suggesting that the department did not care about the plight of the children.
“There will be an avalanche of insults, but there are people who don’t have flush toilets in their homes due to the legacy of apartheid.
“How many people are drowning in those toilets but are not written or reported on?”
— sikhon@dispatch.co.za