He lost his child to a killer, then the justice system stole his hope

Sipho Skosana couldn’t wait for the day he’d get to take his son Bandile to school. But that day will never come.

In May his dreams turned into a nightmare when he found his son’s lifeless body under a rock with 18 stab wounds.

Four-year-old Bandile was assaulted, stabbed 18 times and crushed with a boulder. On May 31 his body was found 2km from his father’s house in Bronkhorstspruit, east of Pretoria, less than 48 hours after he went missing.

The vulnerability of children came under scrutiny again last week after the fatal shooting of Nateniël Julies, 16, allegedly at the hands of the police in Eldorado Park.

Julies, who had Down syndrome, died in Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.

Sgt Scorpion Simon Ndyalvane and Const Caylene Whiteboy – who are attached to the Eldorado Park crime prevention unit – briefly appeared on charges of premeditated murder, defeating the ends of justice, discharging a firearm in a public space and unlawful possession of ammunition. They will remain in custody until their next appearance on September 10.

For Skosana, the memory of his own dead son is painful.

“If this can happen to my family it can happen to any other family. I was looking for him the whole night and the following day. I found him under a rock and even though I knew he was dead I told myself maybe he is alive. I wouldn’t want anyone to go through this experience,” Skosana said.

No arrests have been made in this case and his father said the family have started to lose hope.

Skosana said he often wonders what the perpetrator did when his son screamed in pain after the first stab was inflicted.  

“I was hoping to take him to soccer games, I was looking forward to taking him to school on his first day – I will never get to do that. I still can’t sleep at night because of all the unanswered questions I have. In fact, I’ve lost hope in the justice system.”

His son is among the children brutally murdered, or killed in the crossfire during crime incidents, since the start of 2020.

In February, seven-year-old Emaan Solomons was playing outside her family home in Ocean View, Cape Town, when rival gangs opened fire. She was shot in the chest and hand, and died at a local clinic.

In June, three-year-old Ansia Kheha’s body was found stuffed in a plastic bin by a person collecting plastic in a field in Orange Farm, south of Johannesburg. She had been stabbed and raped.

Last week, two children were among the murder victims in a spate of domestic violence in Gauteng.

After one of the incidents neighbours found a crying baby on a blood-soaked bed.

And in July, a three-year-old girl was killed in a shooting in Eerste River, Cape Town, when unknown suspects stopped in front of a house at 8.30pm and started shooting randomly. 

The child was hit in the head and died in hospital, Brig Novela Potelwa said at the time.

Two teenagers were among the five suspects arrested during the investigation.

Delano Cole van der Linde, of North West University, said children were especially vulnerable in a community where gangsterism and drugs were rife.

“The vulnerability of children in areas affected by gang violence is two-pronged. Children are firstly vulnerable due to the violence in these areas.

“They may be caught in the crossfire or may be impacted otherwise due to the closure of schools, which are often also a marketplace for drugs. 

“This all leads to psychological distress. Other issues include tension within the family and drug dependency,” said Delano Cole van der Linde.

Although not all result in death, the damage is done, said Monique Strydom, CEO of Matla A Bana, an NGO that works closely with the police to assist children who have been sexually abused.

Strydom said that in her experience girls were most vulnerable. When she first started the NGO they were providing rape comfort kits for children between eight and 12 years old; now those kits were going to children as young as four.

While the plight of children was not unique to SA, Strydom said SA children were more vulnerable due to high levels of violence in communities across the country. She said it was concerning that in SA a child could be killed while walking to the shop.

“If you look at places where children should be safe, those are the places where they seem to be most vulnerable. We are sitting with a broken society. The children we often deal with think this is normal.

“We see a lot of grooming happening. A real concern now is when a father rapes a child and the mother tells the child to keep quiet because the father is the breadwinner,” Strydom said.