Two boys have been buried after their bodies were found in Orange Farm, in the south of Johannesburg, last week. The bodies of eight-year-old Mpho Makondo and six-year-old Simphiwe Mncina were discovered metres apart.
The friends were reported missing on Friday last week. They were last seen walking back from a local salon. This is the third incident in which children have been found murdered in the area in five months.
Mpho’s grandmother, Morgina Malatjie, wrote a letter addressed to her grandchild which was read during the funeral service .
“To you a killer, you killed me dead. You have taken away something that I loved. Mpho, mama will always love you. To you the killers or killers. I wish you to die a slow painful death. You have ripped my heart into pieces. You should have killed me instead. What did they do to die a painful death like that and your soul may know no peace.”
Simphiwe’s uncle, Jabulani Mncina, says it’s devastating for him to bury his nephew who died mysteriously
“We just hope that the person who killed these children can be found and die a slow painful death. I’m going to miss Simphiwe with many things. Every time I come from a football match with injuries he would say to me, I told him to stop playing football, you always get injured. Even now I was supposed to go to a football match but I could not because I had to be here to send him to his final resting place. I say where he is, rest in peace my nephew.”
As the children’s coffins were lowered into the ground, their families and the community of Orange farm were frustrated that they still did not know who murdered them and why as police were yet to make any arrests.
In the video below is the funeral service:
While the funeral service was under way inside the Orange farm community hall, a group of women dressed in black held a picket outside, chanting songs and holding huge banners written ‘STOP KILLING OUR CHILDREN’. They say they’ve had enough of the attack and murder of children in the area and they are blaming the police for not doing enough to protection them or arrest those behind their murders.
Community member, Jeniffer Nyokong, says as mothers it pains them to see children being killed in such a brutal manner.
“As women in Orange farm we are hurting because these incidents keep on happening they do not stop. Even our police can not help with these incidents. As the community we can be happy if we can be united and help the police as they say they need our help. We are hurting because these are little children and so innocent. They are targeting children and why children?,” says Nyokong.
Johannesburg councillor and Member of the Mayoral Committee for Public Safety, Margaret Arnolds, has also pointed an accusing finger at the police.
” It is the third time I’m standing here and saying all these things. It is the third time that we are saying enough is enough. How much is enough. How much is it going to take us to get this enough done. I have become tired of standing in front of coffins of little children and had a bright future.”
