INLSA

Four-year-old Xolisa Sphamla

NEO MADITLA

Staff Reporter

Xolisa Sphamla’s handprints on the sandy walls of the Kuils River were all that were found after the four-year-old drowned on Saturday.

According to two little friends who were with Xolisa when he fell in the river, the child tried to pull himself out of the river near the Nyakathisa informal settlement in Mfuleni, but it was too deep.

Xolisa had been playing with his two friends, Sipho and Asemahle, when he decided to go to a sandy patch along the riverside.

His friends told their families that when he walked in, he found it was too deep and could not get out.

Nokwandisa Dubula stands on the spot where four-year-old Xolisa Sphamla drowned while playing with his friends along the Kuils River at the weekend.

INLSA

His friends ran home to tell his mother, Lucy Sphamla, what had happened.

Sphamla had been doing her laundry while the children played outside.

She panicked when the two children came back without Xolisa and told her what had happened.

“We went back to see where he had fallen into the river, but we couldn’t see him – just his footprints in the sand and his handprints on the side of the river,” she said.

It was after 5pm when they started searching for him and they didn’t stop until the police divers came shortly before midnight.

Sphamla said they had to call off the search because it had started raining, but they had resumed the search on Sunday morning.

Xolisa’s body was found not far downstream by police divers.

Sphamla said her son had been fond of drawing, watching Nollywood (Nigerian movies) and dancing.

“He used to like watching television.

“Before he left to go play outside, he had asked me to put a movie on for him,” she said.

Neighbours Nokwandisa Dubula and Nomanye Stokwe said they would remember Xolisa mostly because he was always dancing.

Dubula and Stokwe showed the Cape Argus team where Xolisa fell into the river, five minutes from his home.

Along the river banks were tins, plastic bottles, and a red cloth – signs of children having played in the area before the drowning.

There were also makeshift shelters next to the river, but it was not clear whether people were living there, or if the children had been playing in the shelters.

Dubula said this was not the first time someone had drowned in the area.

She said that in May, a high school pupil drowned, and last year two children drowned in the river.

Dubula said most of the Nyakathisa residents had been living in the area since 2009.

neo.maditla@inl.co.za