Cape Town - Three teenage friends from the Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa died hours after eating vetkoek they had bought from a vendor near their homes.
They had polony in the vetkoek, according to a fourth friend who had eaten with them but survived.
The deaths remain a mystery. Their families alleged they had been poisoned, but the vendor denies this.
Athule Makonzi, 15, Khanyisa Mtamzeli, 17, and Mzingisi Gobecimele, 17, died on Sunday, a few hours after consuming the vetkoek on Saturday night.
Hospitalised on Sunday, Athabile Simayile, 17, was discharged on Wednesday.
He told the Cape Times on Wednesday night he had felt dizzy immediately after eating the vetkoek and polony, went straight home, vomited and collapsed. He woke up in Somerset Hospital on Sunday.
Police spokesperson Noloyiso Rwexana said an inquest docket into the three deaths had been opened for investigation. No one has been arrested.
Rwexana said the surviving boy’s family had lodged a complaint of attempted murder, which was being investigated.
Neziswa Mtamzeli, 38, the mother of one of the deceased boys, Khanyisa, said that when her son arrived at their family home on Saturday night, he took a nap, but within minutes he fell hard off the bed.
She said Khanyisa had told them he felt very hot, and they poured cold water over him and undressed him, before asking him to lie on his bed.
He was vomiting non-stop.
She resolved to take him to the clinic in the morning.
He slept next to his twin brother Khanya. At about 5am Khanya woke his mother and told her that Khanyisa wasn’t breathing. She screamed and called the neighbours.
Khanyisa Mtamzeli
In the morning, news spread that two of Khanyisa’s friends had also died during the night and had the same symptoms of vomiting and fever. Mtamzeli alleged the teenagers had been killed.
“I will not rest until the person who killed my child faces the full might of the law. The way they (friends) have died is puzzling. It is clear that they have been poisoned,” said Mtamzeli.
She also disclosed that Khanyisa had been raped inside their two-room shack and his twin assaulted.
A man who lived in the same area had been found guilty on several charges and sentenced to a combined 75 years last November, Mtamzeli said.
“The family were still recovering from what happened to him last November, and now this,” she said.
Athule’s aunt Pamela Copela, 28, said she received a call from his father that Athule was sick.
Within minutes Copela had another call that he had died en route to hospital after vomiting and feeling hot.
“He was such a sweet child and loved his friends,” she said.
“What is heartbreaking is that all three of them didn't know that the others were sick.”
Both Copela and Mtamzeli said their families had not received counselling from the police or heard about the progress of the investigation.
They called for the vendor to be arrested.
Nomsa Tikiteni, 42, the aunt of the third victim, Mzingisi Gobecimele, said: “Arresting the vendor would not bring the three of them back. Instead the vendor should bury the boys because their families cannot afford to do so.”
But the vendor, Ntombizodwa Mbeshu, denied any culpability, saying she had not sold polony to the boys, only vetkoek. Mbeshu said she had not slept since Sunday because she had received threats from community members that they would burn her home with all of her family inside.
“I do sell vetkoek, but on Saturday the vetkoek I sold them did not match the vetkoek that is said to have been eaten by those young men,” she explained.
“When one of the boys came to buy vetkoek from me on Saturday night I had already run out of polony.”