IT STARTED as a bar fight over a beer.
But it ended with a teenage woman being kidnapped, gang raped and thrown down a mine shaft to die.
IT IS STILL NOT KNOWN IF BIZOLENKOSI HAS SURVIVED THE ORDEAL.
Rescue workers are in a life and death struggle against time and the elements in the hope that the 18-year-old might be found.
Her cousins allegedly had an argument in a tavern in Angelo squatter camp, near Boksburg on Saturday night. The Basotho gang withdrew, but vowed to take revenge.
To prove their threat, they went to a shack in Angelo where Bizolenkosi Dlamini (18) was sleeping and kidnapped her.
Bizolenkosi was taken to the bush, where she was gang raped. Then she was thrown into a mine shaft, still
alive.
The gang fled, but angry residents asked other Basotho people to help find them and they were caught at the Germiston Taxi Rank.
Residents pulled the suspects out of a taxi as they were preparing to flee. They had already called the police and three men were arrested. One managed to escape.
Community leader Thandazile Qwabe said the men confessed to having thrown Bizolenkosi into an old disused mine shaft in Angelo, a squatter camp near Boksburg North, Ekurhuleni.
The cops and residents forced the suspects to take them to the shaft but the mine rescue team had to be called.
Yesterday, rescue team members went down the mine but said the gas was too strong, and they had to call for a rescue team from Bekkersdal. The search continued until 10pm but the girl has still not been found.
Boksburg North cops said the suspects are still to be interrogated to find out exactly where they threw the girl.
Qwabe said the suspects told them they threw her down the mine because she was cheeky and was fighting with them.
“One of the suspects had sperm on his trousers. We hope it will be taken for DNA tests,” he said.
“We don’t know who will help us. We want the government to do something about these Basotho gangs. We pray they will listen to us. Look at what they are doing!”
The girl’s father, Joseph Dlamini (46), who supplied Daily Sun with the picture of his daughter, said Bizolenkosi only came to Boksburg two months ago to study at college.
“My daughter was asleep but ended up the victim of something she was not even part of. My hopes of finding her alive in that shaft are diminishing.”
A case of kidnapping and rape were opened at Boksburg North Police Station yesterday.
