People stood by while a Mozambican
man, Emmanuel Sithole, was cornered,
stabbed in the heart and left to die.
This happened yesterday in
Johannesburg and yes, he died from his
wounds.
Killed just for being from another African
country.. and the story told by the
journalist who witnessed this brutal
stabbing is heartbreaking!
As told by Beauregard Tromp and James
Oatway for www.Timeslive.co.za
Shortly before 7am yesterday April 18th,
Sunday Times journalists were in
Alexandra township, near Sandton,
speaking to shop owners who had their
businesses looted overnight.
Children played, people walked the
streets, some stopped to gawk at the
carnage from the night before. Then this
happened …
In a gutter in Alexandra a Mozambican
man stopped and lay down. The gash to
his chest meant he could go no further.
At the day clinic less than 100m away
they could not help him.
The doctor scheduled to be on duty did
not show up because he was a foreigner
and feared being a victim of xenophobia.
It began on Friday night when mobs
blockaded Arkwright Avenue, one of the
main thoroughfares in Alexandra, with
rubble and burning tyres.
Foreign-owned shops’ roofs were ripped
open and metal gates torn away as
looters went on the rampage.
Outside one spaza shop, a man in a
black corduroy jacket and red shirt was
walking along the road.
Suddenly a young man dressed in a grey
tracksuit jacket beat him over the head
with a wrench.
The red-shirt man tried to fend off the
blows, his arms raised.
He stumbled back, falling into rubbish
strewn by the roadside.
The blows with the wrench rained down.
Then the bludgeoning stopped and the
man with the wrench moved away.
“Are we safe here?” asked a South
African woman watching the attack.
The man in the red shirt got up. Now
another man with a beige spottie
approached, holding an okapi knife high
above his head.
Again, the man in the red shirt raised
his hands, pleading for mercy.
But his pleas were in vain. He was
stabbed … again and again
The two grappled and fell to the floor.
The man with the wrench returned.
Finally, a lanky young man sprinted
towards the man among the rubbish,
kicking him in the head.
The young man pulled a butcher’s knife.
A man in a black leather jacket who had
discouraged the attack grabbed the wrist
with the butcher’s knife. The attackers
fled.
The red-shirt man tried to get up but
fell. Finally he made it to his feet.
Feebly, he walked up the road.
Do you know why they attacked you?
Who are you? Where are you from, we
asked him.
He turned his head towards the
questions fired at him, his face pleading.
He said nothing. His shirt was drenched,
a 2cm gash in his chest.
Metres further he stumbled and lay down
in the gutter. He struggled to sit up and
fell down
Help me get him into the car. Help me,
please,” said photographer James
Oatway, looking around at the men
gathered around him. One stepped
forward, reluctantly.
Up the road, at Alexandra Day Clinic,
nurses did what they could. There was
no doctor; he would have to be taken to
Edenvale Hospital.
Along the way the man was flailing
wildly, sitting up, lying down, wincing
with pain. The wound to his chest was
gushing now.
At Edenvale Hospital a lone gurney
stood at the entrance. The porters sat in
a room with tinted windows. Oatway
pleaded for help. The man in the car was
critical, he said.
Slowly one porter rose and scribbled in a
book. Then the other, both now ambling
towards the hospital entrance. Inside the
car the red-shirt man looked lifeless.
“He’s dead. We can’t take him,” one
porter pronounced.
There was no pulse. Then a gag reflex.
He’s alive.
Inside the ICU, doctors compressed his
chest, massaging his heart. After nearly
seven minutes a ventilator was used.
Shortly after 9am Emmanuel Sithole was
pronounced dead. He was Mozambican.
The stab wound to his chest had
penetrated his heart.
In his pockets, R285 and 10c in change
and a cellphone. His phone would
ensure he did not die nameless.
On his wrist, three armbands read:
“United for Bafana.
.
Comments
Post a Comment