Witbank - The family of 14-year-old Gabisile Shabane - one of two children who were kidnapped from their home in Hlalanikahle in Witbank in Mpumalanga in January and later found murdered - on Friday said that the DNA tests on her body were delayed because she was forced to drink brake fluid mixed with dagga shortly before she was murdered.
Gabisile’s mother Annah Shabane said they have received the DNA test results for another murdered child, 15-month-old boy Nkosikhona Ngwenya, from the South African Police Service two weeks ago.
“It’s very painful to wait for months to bury our children,” Shabane said speaking to reporters outside the Witbank Magistrate’s Court, shortly after four men - Thokozani Msibi, Brilliant Mkhize, Themba Thubane and Knowledge Mhlanga - appeared in connection with the kidnapping and murder.
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“The DNA tests must be completed so that we can bury those children. Our lives are very difficult. We often think and talk about this matter.”
A number of physically disabled people from the African Disabled People’s Movement (ADPM) were among the hundreds of people who gathered outside the Witbank Magistrate’s Court on Friday in support of the family of the murdered children. PHOTO: ANA Reporter
Provincial spokeswoman for the National Prosecuting Authority, Monica Nyuswa, told the African News Agency that the DNA tests were delayed because Gabisile’s body was contaminated with brake fluid.
“The DNA tests will still be completed,” said Nyuswa.
A crowd of people gathered around the African National Congress-branded truck outside the Witbank Magistrate’s Court on Friday in support of the family of the two murdered children.
PHOTO: ANA Reporter
On April 4, State Prosecutor Fanie Mavundla told the same court that Gabisile was forced to drink brake fluid mixed with dagga, allegedly by one of the accused, shortly before she was murdered. Provincial police spokesman Brigadier Leonard Hlathi said on Friday the police were ready to give the Shabane family Nkosikhona’s body if they wanted it.
The children were kidnapped from their home on January 28, allegedly by three men who entered the house through a broken window. Gabisile’s headless body was found buried in a shallow grave in Cullinan in the east of Pretoria in the third week of February with some of its parts missing. The body of Nkosikhona, who is not an albino, was found on the side of the N4 freeway in Mpumalanga in the same week.
The case was postponed to August 14 of further investigations.