Families mourn drowned matriculants

Published Oct 15, 2014

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Cape Town - The grieving families of two matriculants who drowned in a pool at a camp site in Strandfontein on Monday want answers as to what happened.

On Sunday Bukhosibethu Tywaku, 18, and Odwa Macupe, 17, left their homes to attend a five-day study camp at the Rotary Club in Strandfontein run by the YMCA.

The two Luhlaza High School pupils were due to write their final exams in a week. Instead they are both dead and the circumstances surrounding the drownings are unclear.

On Monday the camp was cut short and on Tuesday only their suitcases made it back home.

Police spokesman FC van Vyk said an inquest docket had been opened.

At the Tywaku home, in Khayelitsha on Tuesday, a few women sat in the dining room expressing their shock with some reminiscing about the “stellar pupil”.

Bukhosibethu received three academics medals for mathematics literacy, physics and life sciences this year.

On Saturday, he had written an aptitude test at the University of the Western Cape where he had applied to study social work.

“He was my baby, the last born,” cried his mother, Elizabeth Tywaku.

“I should have told him not to swim, something in me wanted to tell him that but I don’t know why I didn’t.”

She and her husband, Richard, last saw their son on Thursday, three days before he left for the camp as they had spent the weekend in the Eastern Cape, attending a funeral.

On Monday, the school principal visited the family at about 10.30am. He was met by Bukhosibethu’s older brother, Ayanda, who was told his brother was missing.

Ayanda left for the camp site to help search for his brother, but upon arrival he was directed to where Bukhosibethu’s lifeless body lay.

His friends said the body had been found at about 8.30 that morning.

“Why didn’t they stop us from going to the camping ground, why did he (the principal) come two hours later only to lie to us? No one is giving us answers here,” said Ayanda.

The Tywaku family blamed the principal for Bukhosibethu’s death. They said he had not signed any indemnity forms, but had paid R200 for camp fees.

“It was his responsibility to ensure our child’s safety. Where were they when Bukhosibethu and the other child went swimming in the middle of the night? Why were we only told this in the morning,” said Richard Tywaku.

The Western Cape Education Department’s Jessica Shelver said contingency plans were being implemented for the study work missed this week and the Grade 12 pupils were receiving counselling support.

Meanwhile, police are still searching for a missing 8-year-old boy who was swept out to sea in Hermanus on Friday.

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Cape Argus

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