Despite an agonising two-day search for his missing daughter, a distraught Matatiele father refused to give up even when the search was called off by police.
Motiisetsi Lebenya's daughter was one of the six schoolchildren who were drowned while trying to cross a raging Mgxojeni River on their way from school at Popopo village following heavy rains.
They never reached their homes in Freyistata village as they were swept away by the heavy currents.
While police and villagers managed to retrieve four dead bodies on Wednesday, five-year-old Boitumelo Lebenya and Elomso Ntsimbi, 8, were nowhere to be found.
But Lebenya refused to give up on his daughter and continued scouring the shores of the river with his three dogs and three other villagers.
His efforts were rewarded when he finally found her lifeless body at about 3.30pm on Friday, hours after police had officially called off their search.
''After police left and the rain stopped, it was after 1pm that something inside told me that I must go again and find her. I was looking under every log and when I knelt down and saw a foot …I quickly identified that it was one of my daughter Boitumelo's feet."
Lebenya cried and thanked God that he had found her body.
"She was still wearing a school skirt. The place I found the body is exactly where police and the villagers searched on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning. What a relief. I am happy we found her. We will bury her with dignity and close this chapter,'' said the father about his second-born.
The father notified police that he had recovered his daughter's body.
The children attended Popopo Primary School...