“We will get them!”

“We will get them ...” This was the assurance of Limpopo’s MEC for Safety and Liason, Ms Florence Radzilani, during the emotional funeral of an alleged ritual murder victim at Tshilungoma last weekend.

Radzilani warned that police would leave no stone unturned in search of the killers of little nine-year-old Mutshidzi Ramanyimi. The little girl was allegedly ruthlessly murdered in what the community believes is the work of human parts harvesters, who killed her for body parts.

Ramanyimi went missing on 1 March while playing with her friends at a neighbouring house. She was not seen again until her body was found half buried in sand at a nearby rivulet.

After the discovery of her body, enraged community members wanted to take the law into their own hands after they had identified three villagers as suspects, but the police could not detain these suspects. The local community leadership worked tirelessly to keep everything under control.

When the coffin carrying the remains of the young girl was lowered to the grave, many of her former schoolmates who were overwhelmed with grief collapsed. There were two funerals at the same time and when Radzilani was to address the community, all gathered together to listen to her speech.

At the emotionally charged service, Radzilani said members of the community had the responsibility of working together with the police to ensure that the perpetrators were brought to book. “We are here to give the community and the family the assurance that the suspects will soon be behind bars. We have had many serious cases in the province and asked the community to give us time and space to investigate them thoroughly and we succeeded in apprehending the culprits. We can assure you here today that we have established a task team of highly experienced detectives who are busy with the case,” Radzilani said.

She said the community’s responsibility did not entail destroying property. “Taking responsibility does not mean burning someone's house because that may result in another case that will also take the shine from the case being investigated,” said Radzilani.

She said if people left everything in the hands of the police, it would not help them either. “Limpopo is a community of some 5 million people with 14 326 police officers, so you will understand why I say people must help the police,” said Radzilani. She urged the community to use the girl's death to take a look at itself. “We must ask ourselves why certain wrong things happen in our community,” she added.

Community leader Ms Magdeline Netshiavha, who is the Sanco Vhembe chairperson, said the death of Mutshidzi had touched the whole nation and not the family alone. “It is our responsibility as the community to stand up and declare our utmost support for the police because, if we do not work with the police, we will then start blaming them, saying that they are not working. Criminals live in our midst and it is us who can expose them and give them no place to hide in our areas. If we do not do that, we will not achieve anything,” she said.

Date:22 March 2013

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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