Cape Town - A Delft family is traumatised after seeing their brother’s body after he had been kidnapped from his home and necklaced.
The family say they woke up to the horrifying screams of Phelang Ramotsabi, 25, who was dragged off by a group of men through his parents’ backyard shortly after 1am on on Sunday.
“We know he was out the night before at a shebeen. Then he came home and at about 1am we heard him screaming for my father to help him,” says his brother Athenkosi Mavuso, 22.
“He sleeps in his own shack at the back of the house and they dragged him, but when my father got out, he saw a white [Toyota] Avanza speed away.”
The brother says the family initially had no idea what was happening and they rushed to Delft Police Station to report the matter.
They spent the next few hours searching Delft for the white car and were shocked when they were told by community members that Phelang’s body had been found on a field in Cheesewood Street in the area.
Athenkosi says when they arrived at the space of land next to the R300 highway, they found a smouldering tyre around Phelang’s body, with one side of his face completely burnt off.
“I could see it is him and that tyre was still hot. You could also see they beat him up because there was lots of blood on his face,” says the traumatised young man.
Phelang was kidnapped and necklaced in Delft on Sunday
Relatives say after questioning neighbours, they were told Phelang and a friend had spent the night drinking at a local shebeen and, while walking home, they got into a fight with other men.
“That is all we know. The police are trying to find out who did this, but I don’t know why they would be so brutal. He was not a gangster or a trouble maker,” says Athenkosi.
“He worked at a construction company in Milnerton and has a girlfriend but no children. We are waiting to see what the police find out because we don’t know why this happened. The family is stressed because we don’t know exactly how this happened, but seeing him like that is traumatising.”
Police spokesperson, Lieutenant-Colonel André Traut, confirms the incident and says: “The circumstances surrounding the death of a 25-year-old man is being investigated after his burnt body was discovered in Cheesewood Street, Delft, [on Sunday] morning at 1:15am.
“No one has been arrested as yet and the motive is yet to be established.”