Pretoria - Betty Mabena would have been burnt alive had the police not intervened after she was accused of practising witchcraft.
Mabena, 35, was inexplicably found on the roof of a neighbour’s garage in the early hours of Tuesday morning in what her family said was a relapse in her mental condition. Community members of Refilwe, a township in Cullinan, had apparently threatened to burn her alive.
“They were saying they were going to burn her because they believed she was bewitching them,” said Mabena’s sister Thembi.
She told the Pretoria News that her sister spent the night at her house but disappeared during the early hours of Tuesday morning.
“I thought she had gone to the bathroom but at around 6am I heard shouting and screaming outside.
“I got dressed and went to inspect what was going on and saw a young man carrying a tyre and running towards the crowd and where a fire was. I could see Betty there but didn’t want to approach the crowd because they were angry and would have tried burning me too,” she said.
Thembi said what infuriated the crowd was Betty’s inablity to explain how she ended up on the roof.
“When they asked her how she got there, she said she didn’t know and then gave them different explanations which they did not believe,” said Thembi.
Paulinah Leshiba, who found Betty in her yard, said the 35-year-old was shouting that her husband and children had been murdered and that they should call the police.
“She couldn’t say how she got up there. People have been saying that they have found her in their yards before and that this was not the first time this had happened. That’s why the young boys wanted to burn her,” she said. Betty was then taken to Mamelodi Day Hospital.
Thembi said police intervened before any harm could be meted out to her sister. Police said officers swiftly responded to calls of unrest in the township and were there before the situation escalated.
“We did not make any arrests as a case of trespassing was not opened nor was the 35-year-old woman injured,” a spokeswoman said.
Despite the police’s intervention, Mabena’s father Boy Ntuli believes that his family is now in danger after hearing that the community was threatening to burn down his house as he was taking care of her until she recovered.
“I fear that the community is planning to attack my home. I’ve heard rumours that they were planning to burn my house because she's here and they still maintain she is a witch,” he said.
Pretoria News