Slain Diepsloot pupil, mom moved to new area for 'safety reasons'

"Andikwazi nokuthetha (I can't even speak)."

These are the words of a grieving mother who minutes after returning from working night shift on Tuesday, discovered that her 14-year-old daughter had been murdered and her body dumped near a butchery, some  150m away from their home in crime-ridden Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg.

With a candle lit in one corner of the room, 46-year-old Koleka Mdutyana sat on a mattress on the floor of her one-room flat in Ext 2. She last saw her daughter Unathi alive around 8pm on Monday when she left for work.

Covered in a blanket and her head wrapped with a scarf, the bereaved mother broke down as relatives recalled details on the circumstances surrounding Unathi's death.

The single mother, who works at a casino in Fourways, Johannesburg, had moved to Ext 2 from Ext 4 two years ago due to safety reasons and because she works night shift and wanted to ensure that her daughter would be safe.

Leaving her daughter at home while she goes to work at night is a routine they had been accustomed to for nearly two years. 

But when she arrived home at about 5.30am on Tuesday, Mdutyana knocked, as she normally does, and waited a while for Unathi to open the door, but there was no response.

“The door was locked.  When she opened their flat, Unathi was not inside the house, but the TV was on,” said Unathi’s uncle Lihle Mdutyana.

“Her mother then left [the house] to go to a nearby shop to get airtime [so that she could] call Unathi. Some people on the streets told her that there was a young girl’s body which was found at an open field near the butchery.”

She inquisitively walked to the crime scene, unaware that tragedy had struck. Unathi had been murdered. Her body left lying on the ground with a stab wound in the neck. 

“Her phone was missing. She still had her slippers on. Next to her was a R5 coin and the house key. It appears as though she left the house and went out," said Lihle.

“This is a mother’s worst nightmare. She had gone out to make a living for herself and her child and comes back to find her daughter had been killed."

Police spokesperson Col Noxolo Kweza said a case of murder was being investigated and no arrests had been made.

Lihle said Unathi's mother had done everything in her power to protect her daughter from the rampant crime in Diepsloot.

“She opted for this block of flats because it is relatively "safe". There are safety rules and it is secure,” he said.

“They also had a routine where she would lock herself in when her mother leaves and when the mother returns, she would just knock and Unathi would open the door.” 

Unathi’s aunt Thoko Mdutyana said she had spoken to the teen on WhatsApp just hours before she was found dead.  

“It was after 8pm or so when she requested that I send her data. So I told her that I would send some money to her mother and she would be the one to send her the data. And that was done and she confirmed that she received the data. Minutes later, I sent her a message but it was never read,” she said. 

“Her mother tried to call her at 11pm just as part of their routine checkup, she did not answer, and the assumption was that she was asleep.” 

Unathi was a grade 9 learner at the Diepsloot Combined school. 

Just weeks before the teen's murder, another matric pupil from the same school was killed in his shack in Ext 6. 

Mathiba Mogale, 17, was shot and killed when a group of men stormed into his shack while he was doing homework on April 3. Some items were stolen from the home. 

He was buried in Limpopo last weekend.

A candlelight ceremony will be held in honour of Unathi on Saturday, where her body was found. The family said they hoped to get some answers. 

Community leader Loyiso Toyiya, who was among a group of leaders who took to the Union Buildings in Pretoria  last year and called for President Cyril Ramaphosa's intervention in Diepsloot as crime escalated, said violent crimes in the area happened daily.

"These killings did not stop just because the media stopped reporting about them. People continue to die and now it seems that children are not spared.

"It is sad to see that these criminals have no mercy even on children. We have made calls for interventions, and we are still making these calls for the president to intervene with all three relevant ministries," he said.

sibiyan@sowetan.co.za