Cape Town - Almost six months after the rape and murder of a young Gugulethu woman, community and gender activist groups are still shocked at the lack of progress in the investigation.
Now they fear those who killed Thuthukile Mabasa might never be brought to justice.
Community leader Nuse Mpetha said they believed Mabasa was raped and murdered because she was a lesbian. And their attempts to find answers into Mabasa’s death has only yielded more questions.
According to Mpetha, Mabasa was last seen by a male friend in the company of a lesbian friend.
But what happened afterwards and how she got to the house where she was allegedly killed was not clear.
“According to information that we have pieced together, it appears that she went to the house against her will, but she was kept there for four days and gang-raped,” Mpetha said.
Mabasa’s body was later found along rail tracks close to Nyanga station, a township in Cape Town.
“She had no parents, and only lived with a brother who appears to have mental challenges.
“It took three months before she could be buried because there was no money to do so,” added Mpetha.
He said despite the fact that some suspects were arrested, the case was dismissed, allegedly due to a lack of evidence.
Mpetha said the decision baffled the community as the DNA test results were not available yet, and that attempts to get a case number from the police to regularly monitor progress were not unsuccessful.