CAPE TOWN - A Gauteng pupil who was snatched from her school in Mayfair has been returned home on Wednesday.
Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi expressed delight at the girl’s safe return.
“According to information at our disposal, the pupil’s mother received a call from the police this morning informing her to come and fetch her child at the police station,” Lesufi said.
The 11-year-old Grade 5 EP Baumann Primary School pupil was kidnapped at gunpoint by three men travelling in a new-shape silver/white Toyota Yaris with the registration number JS62CS GP on November 17, provincial education authorities said at the time.
The girl was snatched outside the school gate as she was waiting in line to be screened and sanitised.
“We are delighted to receive this good news of the safe return of this girl pupil. We will avail our Psycho-Social Unit to provide additional counselling to her, given the trauma she has faced during this unfortunate incident,” Lesufi said.
Anti-crime activist Yusuf Abramjee was one of the first people to raise the alarm over the abduction of the girl on social media and also one of the first to highlight her return.
Abramjee said the child was found south of Johannesburg at a house in Freedom Park.
The return has South African breathing a sigh of relief as this was not the first case of child abduction to grip the country.
On Wednesday, October 20, the Moti brothers, Zia, Alaan, Zayyad and Zidan, were on their way to school in Polokwane at around 7am when they were taken at gunpoint.
A group of men with rifles and handguns cornered their vehicle and forcefully removed them.
Prayers for their safe return were conducted across the country.
On November 11, three weeks after their abduction the boys returned home to their parents. They were dropped off in Vuwani, more than 100 kilometres from their home in Polokwane.
At the time, the family released a statement via their business Facebook page saying that the brothers were safe at home.