Cape Town - A Cape Town suburb is gripped by fear after a girl was snatched, beaten and raped while on her way to school.
Now police are on the hunt for a black Toyota Tazz and three suspects after the brutal abduction and sex attack.
The 17-year-old victim’s mother spoke to the Daily Voice on Wednesday about her daughter’s horror ordeal.
She says her Grade 12 daughter left her Grassy Park home at 7.30am on Tuesday.
“She crossed the street when she saw a black Tazz in one of the side roads,” explained the shaken mom.
“She said the vehicle drove into a driveway and reversed and two men got out of the back. One of them grabbed her and closed her nose with a cloth.”
The teen says the men were all dressed in dark clothing and hid their faces.
“She felt her throat burning and then she passed out,” say the mom.
“She said ... they spoke like gangsters and wore hooded jackets and balaclavas.”
The mom, 39, said the girl remembers begging them not to rape her and fighting one of them off her.
“She said she told them she is sick and having her period and that she is HIV-positive,” explained the mom.
The teen told her mom she was again beaten in the face and passed out.
“She regained consciousness and saw one of the men was on her and that her dress was pulled up,” said the distraught mother.
The girl was then dropped off nearby in Zeekoevlei and began looking for help. Eventually, a woman took her to her high school where her mother and police were contacted.
Police spokesman Andre Traut confirmed that “a 17-year-old female victim was kidnapped and raped by three unknown suspects driving a black Toyota Tazz”.
“The victim was confronted by the suspects in 8th Avenue, Grassy Park, and taken to an unknown location where the rape was perpetrated. No one has been arrested yet,” Traut said.
The headmistress of the girl’s school, Grassy Park High School, Marcia Woolward, told the Cape Argus that the girl had been on her way to school.
It is understood that after being raped by the three men, the girl was dropped off near the school.
“She came into the school almost in a half-trance,” Woolward said.
Bronagh Casey, spokeswoman for Education MEC Donald Grant, reported: “At 10.30am, a member of staff found the learner at the school gate. The learner was traumatised and her lip was bleeding and her eye bruised. There were no other visible injuries.
“The school immediately phoned the police and then the school’s social worker,” Casey said.
Woolward said the girl’s family had been notified the moment the girl was found.
Grant said: “I deplore the actions of these perpetrators. I sincerely hope that the perpetrators are arrested soon, and, if found guilty, punished to the full extent of the law.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the young learner. I also thank the principal and school staff for their handling of this very sensitive situation,” Grant said.
Casey said the girl’s classmates had been assisted by a psychologist and social workers, and the school was working with the police.
“When the learner is recovered and ready, we will provide her with educational support so that she can catch up on any work that she misses during this period,” Casey said.
Traut said the abduction could have been the second within the past week. He reported that a 15-year-old was abducted on Friday, driven around all night in a red vehicle, but had not been harmed before being released.
Spokesman for the Grassy Park Community Policing Forum, Phillip Bam, said it was crucial that more be done to keep children safe on the streets, especially on their way to school.
Daily Voice, Cape Argus