Orange Farm, a relatively young township situated about 45km south of Joburg, is under siege by nyaope addicts, with residents afraid to leave their homes in case they are burgled.
Teenagers and young adults in the area are increasingly becoming hooked on the deadly drug, which is a highly addictive mix of heroin and dagga.
But while the problem is growing, there is no rehabilitation clinic in the area.
“If you leave home you will come back to an empty house,” said one woman, who described waking up one morning to a flooded yard because addicts had stolen her copper pipes to sell for scrap metal.
Resident Lindiwe Mthethwa said she recently returned from her sister’s funeral in Soweto to find her house had been turned upside down.
Moeketsi Seya, 24, and a nyaope addict for almost three years, was found shot dead in the nearby veld in February.
According to his grandmother Pauline Seya, Moeketsi’s path into nyaope hell began when he was abducted by an illegal initiation school in 2013.
“I spent a whole month looking for him. Some man visited me and told me the boy was at the initiation school and I needed to pay R1 000 for him to come out,” she said.
Seya says she paid the ransom and her grandson came back, but behaved differently.
“He was coming home late and even stopped school.”
She said Orange Farm residents complained that he had been stealing and mugging people in the street. At first she thought people were just speaking badly about him without real cause, but then she noticed that some of her own belongings were going missing.
“He would sometimes demand my pension money and if I refused he would make comments that he was going to burn down the house,” said Seya, adding that her grandson had gone so far as to threaten her with a knife.
“Nyaope took over my household. On the streets I was called Gogo Nyaope, because I was trying to protect him.”
Moeketsi would be arrested but released after a few days and return home. Seya lived in fear of him and it was only when her daughter and husband moved in with her that she started feeling safe again.
Then one day in February the police knocked on her door. She knew it had to do with Moeketsi. When they broke the news to her that her grandson had been shot dead she was not surprised.
Seya was heartbroken that her grandson had died - and so violently - but relieved at last that he was free from his addiction.
According to Bolokang Molefe, the communications and advocacy officer at the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (Sanca) in Soweto, peer pressure and unemployment have contributed to the rise of nyaope addicts in the area.
Orange Farm police spokesman Captain Johannes Motswiri said Seya’s murder is still under investigation but no arrest had been made.
Saturday Star