An Alice woman’s right arm had to be amputated after she was attacked by three vicious dogs that have reportedly been running amok and attacking villagers at KwaGuquka for about 18 months.
Villagers said the cross-breeds – which have now been taken in by the King William’s Town SPCA – have attacked seven people since January last year, including a six-year-old child. All managed to escape with minor injuries.
Nomasonto Msizi, 27, was not so lucky when the pack leapt on her at around 11pm on May 25.
Speaking outside her mud home this week, she said she had been coming back from a tavern when the dogs attacked her.Msizi earned a living by doing laundry for other villagers – something she will no longer be able to do with only one arm.
“It was my work arm … without it, I cannot do anything,” she said.
After unsuccessfully trying to fight off the dogs, she passed out and woke up at Victoria Hospital in Alice before she was transferred to Cecilia Makiwane Hospital in Mdantsane, where her arm was amputated.
She was transported to Mdantsane in a doctor’s car because of the ongoing emergency service strike.
Provincial health spokesman Lwandile Sicwetsha stonewalled questions on the doctors transporting Msizi, but confirmed that due to the severity of Msizi’s wounds, her arm could not be saved.
Msizi’s mother, Nomawethu, 62, who was attacked by the same dogs last year, said she now had to do everything for her daughter.
“We are very traumatised,” she said.
Several villagers told the Dispatch that taxi boss Sipho Funjwa’s dogs were attacking people on a regular basis.
Community leader and Raymond Mhlaba ANC PR councillor Kwanele Macakela said seven people had been attacked by the dogs since January.
“A child aged six was also bitten in the leg by the same dogs last year.
“As residents we put together 42 signatures calling for the SPCA to take the dogs away, and so far we have achieved what everyone wanted.
“Our children were not safe.”
SPCA senior inspector Anette Muller said: “The police handed three cross-breed dogs to the SPCA pending the court case.
“The owner was left with one dog which was not a culprit.”
Funjwa appeared in the Alice Magistrate’s Court on Friday facing charges of negligently failing to prevent his animals from causing injury to a person.
Eastern Cape police spokeswoman Colonel Michelle Matroos said Funjwa would reappear in the same court on July 13.
Contacted for comment, Funjwa, who is out on warning, said: “What should I say now? Because the dogs have been taken away.” — malibongwed@dispatch.co.za..