Africa-Press – South-Africa. I have been failed by the police and by our own municipality. Today I want Khaya to be the one that corrects all the wrongs.”
So said Kholekile Magadla on Friday at the memorial service of his son Khayalethu, as he detailed the events that transpired after the boy fell into a manhole in Soweto on 12 June while playing with friends at a nearby park.
“I saw them all try to save my son.
“I heard them say ‘go in, save him, dive in’. I recall saying ‘allow me to go in and save my son’ but they said it was not allowed,” said Magadla.
He said the days of the search had left left him depressed as he patiently waited for the return of his son.
“I never slept, how could I have, my six-year-old was missing. I would burn the tyre and just sit there hoping and waiting.
“The one time I could sleep was when I was drugged with pills. I heard them speaking of the kilometres they have covered but everything sounded like I was at a racetrack, running numbers.”
Magadla expressed how the municipality, police, and City of Joburg had failed him during the search, sharing that his community was what held him in comfort as he went through one of the toughest times.
He said City of Joburg closed the manhole the very same day they discovered his son had fallen inside.
“They closed that hole where my son had fell in, as though they were burying him.
“When the day was done, I saw them all packed their things and left the scene like nothing was going on. I felt pain, I was broken,” he said.
Magadla also said he shared his pain with his community that helped him from day one after his son had disappeared.
“Community members in Dlamini left their comfortable beds to help me search for my son. I am standing here today because the community covered me with the same blanket that we shared in pain.”
Magadla said things in Dlamini never get done. He said they were constantly neglected and brought to suffering by the municipality that he said failed them constantly.
He said:
After Magadla’s words, tributes kept flowing from residents who said in Khayalethu they’d lost one of a kind. They said he was a leader and had shown potential of being president.
“He has led us to light, as his father said. Yes, it hurts and yes, we are crying but he has led,” said family relative Veli Mthethwa.
Former Johannesburg mayor and Action SA president Herman Mashaba echoed Magadla’s sentiments of being failed by the municipality and police, saying destruction of infrastructure in South Africa was robbing children of their future.
“I apologise for not doing enough as a country, but the death of your child will serve as a monument to some of us that we will never experience such a tragedy again,” he said.
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