‘I only pretended to be dead’

Cape Town. 141120. Loyiso Buyeye, 24, was beaten to an inch of his death in Delft by an angry mob. Reporter Fran. Pic COURTNEY AFRICA

Cape Town. 141120. Loyiso Buyeye, 24, was beaten to an inch of his death in Delft by an angry mob. Reporter Fran. Pic COURTNEY AFRICA

Published Nov 21, 2014

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Cape Town - Bleeding profusely after being stoned and beaten to within an inch of his life, he lay still for several minutes, pretending to be dead.

“I wanted them to stop the beating. Everyone was trying to kill me. I had to make them believe I was dead or else the stoning would not stop,” said Loyiso Buyeye, 24, on Thursday as he recalled the 45 minutes that he was “tortured” by a Delft mob, which had attacked him for allegedly stealing goods from a resident’s yard.

He kept playing dead so well that when metro officials and the police arrived, they also thought he had died and loaded his “corpse” into the back of a police van and took him to a nearby health centre.

There he revealed that he was alive, but barely. He was treated and discharged after a few hours.

A video of Buyeye’s attack went viral on social media. A woman is seen sjambokking him in the face.

Minutes into the video, three city law enforcement officers arrive, one eating a banana. The officers have since been suspended.

It was widely reported in the media, including the Cape Times, that Buyeye had succumbed to the violent attack.

The Cape Times visited Buyeye on Thursday, where he said he had been “hiding out”, wanting city officials to think he was dead.

“I don’t trust anyone any more. I don’t even want to open a case because I don’t trust the police,” Buyeye said.

Last Thursday, he had been walking with a friend when they saw about 50 people congregating at the end of a road. As Buyeye and his friend walked towards them, the people turned and started running towards them, he said.

His friend ran away, but Buyeye decided not to flee. People with iron rods and bricks assaulted him.

City safety and security executive director Richard Bosman said:

“Now that we have located the victim, we hope to piece together the rest of the events as soon as possible so that we may determine whether our officers were derelict in their duties and take further action, or exonerate and reinstate them.”

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Cape Times

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