Vyeboom threatens with shutdown if no arrests are made

If the protest action by Vyeboom residents in Vuwani is anything to go by, the ugly ghost of the 2016 violent total shutdown might be resurrected. This follows threats by the community to shut down the area if the police fail to arrest suspects they have identified as responsible for the killing of a local woman.

The angry residents marched on Tuesday, 2 April, from the scrapyard in Vuwani to the local Vuwani Police Station, where they handed over a memorandum of their grievances. The march followed the disappearance of a peer counsellor, Ms Naledzani Makhado, and the subsequent discovery of her skeletal remains in 2023.

The 52-year-old Makhado went missing in September 2021 after telling her family she was going to work at the Kurhuleni clinic. She never reached her workplace. Her remains were discovered next to the Luvuvhu River at Tshitungulwane in 2023. Residents who had earlier identified her alleged killers demand that they be arrested, or they will embark on a total shutdown.

At the police station, the huge group of protesters demanded that they be allowed inside the police station premises, but after a while, only two leaders were allowed inside, where they handed over the memorandum. Community leader Mr Terence Malada said the community had done all it could to assist in the case, but no breakthrough seemed to have been made.

Safety MEC Florence Radzilani and the provincial commissioner visited the area and promised a speedy arrest, but four months later, even after the skeleton had been positively identified as that of Ms Makhado, no arrest has been made. “We are now losing our patience, and we demand the immediate arrest of the killers. We also want the investigating officer removed from the case as he is not capable. We are embarking on an indefinite shutdown until the killers are arrested. If not, they must just forget about our votes,” he said.

Date:04 April 2024

By: Elmon Tshikhudo

Elmon Tshikhudo started off as a photographer. He developed an interest in writing and started submitting articles to local as well as national publications. He became part of the Limpopo Mirror family in 2005 and was a permanent part of the news team until 2019.

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