Khayelitsha community members said the police failed them when they didn’t come out to the family when Lolitha Kowa was reported missing.
The seven-year-old girl was found with a screwdriver stuck in her head, and she had allegedly been raped earlier this week.
She was last seen on Tuesday afternoon around 3pm, when she said she was going to play at her friend’s home.
The friend’s mom, Nokuthula Matyesini, is now accused of taking her life together with her boyfriend, Odwa Jack.
The pair were arrested on Wednesday, hours after the lifeless body of the child was found about 1.5 kilometres from her Kuyasa home in Khayelitsha.
According to community member Mickey Linda, the Kowa family went to the Harare police station on Tuesday, but the officers did not attend to the missing person’s complaint.
“They were told that there was no loudhailer (PA system), so they couldn’t go out. The family members came back; they didn’t even come out to hear what the community’s concerns were. If the police came out on that evening, they could have gone there to check Nokuthula’s house because we kept knocking there three times; the police would have found Lolitha in that house.”
Linda said the police only arrived in the morning when the body had already been discovered.
“The police went to the suspects’ house while the scene was still active, and they said they didn’t see anything suspicious; it took a community member to point out the blood spatter on the wall. And then they decided to go back there and bring out the sniffer dogs.”
Linda added that she had hoped that Lolitha would come back home.
“I thought that Lolitha would come back home because Nokuthula had taken her before and then brought her back in the morning. I didn’t know that this time, we would find her body the next day.”
Harare police station commander Colonel Thembelani Mahlatshana said he still had not reached the officers who were on duty on Tuesday night.
He said this as Police Portfolio Committee Chairperson Ian Cameron visited the station after the first court appearance of the accused.
“There were four vans, and if the van didn’t have the PA system, they could have used another from a different unit. The shift that was working, I have not seen them. I called them, and I have not managed to get hold of them. I was also told by the victim’s mother that they were at the station to report the child missing.”
He said that there is an internal investigation to confirm whether the family was there and who they spoke to.
mandilakhe.tshwete@inl.co.za
