Fire destroys six family huts in Shigalo village

The Shigalo community is in shock, following the mysterious burning to ashes of six huts belonging to different families in the village.

The incidents which happened at different times two weeks ago, left some of the families with no place to sleep and some with all their belongings completely burnt to ashes. The affected families are those of Nwa-Juwawa Sithole, who was not home at the time, Justice Nghonyama, Nwa-Zulu Maluleke and Edward Maluleke.

According to the local headman, Hasani Samson Maluleke, the fires started on Friday and the last of the houses was torched in the early hours of Saturday. Maluleke, who is also known as headman July, said  they had no suspects so far and that they were still trying to figure out who could be behind the spate of fires in the village.

Seven-year-old Steven Chauke, the grandson of  Nwa Juwawa Sithole, was at his grandmother's home, watching television while his brothers were already asleep. "My grandmother, Nwa-Juwawa, was away at the traditional women’s initiation, called tikhomba, when the incident happened." Steven became an instant hero when he saved this siblings from a certain death after noticing the fire, which started at around 01:00, and woke them up. They managed to save a few belongings from the one hut, but the other one was completely destroyed as it was locked.

Local civic chairperson John Baloyi said the situation was sickening and out of control in the village. "We are highly disturbed by people who walk around drinking alcohol throughout the night. We are going to seek permission from our chief that we hold a meeting and seek ways to end this carnage," he said.

Date:25 July 2014

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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