Stakeholders involved in the circumcision practice in the Eastern Cape are hoping for zero circumcision deaths this summer.
The province launched its summer circumcision season in East London.
They have plans to curb the carnage of young boys dying as hundreds of young boys take the traditional rite of passage to manhood.
The number of fatalities have led to improvements in the past two seasons. The fatalities are down from 30 last summer to 11 last June.
Fikile Xasa, Eastern Cape Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) MEC elaborates:
“We want to make sure that we do better than we did in the last two seasons. We are going to target the problem areas to ensure that we achieve that goal, actually our goal is no deaths.”
Langa Mavuso, of the Eastern Cape house of traditional leaders says:
“The main aim of an initiation is to build men of tomorrow that will protect communities and we wish that they go there and come back alive and be the men that serve our society.”
A fleet of bakkies will be deployed across the province used by specially trained health officials to respond to any emergency.
