A move for a better life ends in disaster

The late Thabiso “Abram” Sootho (27) and injured Mthandazo “Prayer” Hanees (25) were two of three people who came from Potchefstroom on Friday (May 13), to play music at the Royal Priesthood Power House Church, held at Actonville Primary School.

They lived in Dallas Street (Mandela Park) with Prophet Brendin Links, who owns the church, and mostly visited a family who live in Karachi Court.

Oliver Erasmus was an eyewitness when the two men fell out of the seven-storey building at around 6.30pm.

“Abram and I went to buy cigarettes after we had lunch at my sister on the fifth floor, and we stood by the lift to smoke,” Erasmus said.

“My twin, Olivia Erasmus, then came with Prayer, and they were joking with us for disappearing.

“Then Prayer jokingly and very gently tackled Abram, and they ended up against the wall, which broke and they fell.”

Olivia tried to grab Prayer as the men fell, but she almost fell with him.

“I grabbed my sister because she was the only one I could save,” said Erasmus.

Links invited the Mamepee Band (three members) to play at his church, with the ultimate goal of he and another man, Tebogo Motebe, joining the group’s members to form a new band.

“I have known the two since 2013, when they began playing in the band at Miracle Centre Ministries, in Potchefstroom,” Links said.

“They came to Benoni to create a better life for themselves.”

Teboho Feliti, who is the third member of the Mamepee Band, said all three of them were like brothers.

“Abram lived with me for eight years; we became friends in high school and I taught him to play the guitar,” Feliti said.

“He is 27 years old and has two younger brothers, Lucky and Tumi Molebatsi.”

Feliti and Links travelled to Potchefstroom on Tuesday (May 17), to speak to Lucky about funeral arrangements and to meet with Prayer’s family.

“Prayer is doing better; he was taken to Tambo Memorial Hospital on Sunday, then moved to the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital,” Links said.

“But, on Tuesday morning, he was moved back to Tambo Memorial Hospital.

“As far as we know, he sustained a leg injury.”

Joel Krige, who knows the men and was standing beneath the flat when they fell, said he screamed for someone to call an ambulance.

“Abram fell with his face hitting the ground first,” he said.

“Prayer fell shortly after, because Olivia tried to grab him, but the pole he grabbed onto when he was falling, broke.”

A resident who lives opposite the flat, Sylvia Chettra, said she heard the residents screaming and that the vibration of the bricks, together with the two men falling, felt like a miniature earthquake.

“I went out and saw the deceased on the floor, so I gave one of my blankets to cover him, out of respect,” she said.

A resident who lives in unit 503, which is the floor from which the men fell, said he saw what happened from his house.

“I heard them laughing, and saw the men by the wall when it broke,” Moses Nungu said.

“I have complained about this wall several times to the municipality.”

Ward 29’s Clr Imtiaz Loonat sympathises with the deceased’s family.

“I, myself, laid a complaint about three weeks ago, but fixing the building is a process,” he said.

According to Loonat, the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) had appointed consultant engineers to assess the building hopefully by Tuesday (May 17).

Residents said members of the EMM visited the flat on Monday, to place a temporary fence where the bricks fell.

PR Clr Haseena Ismail said numerous petitions were sent to the EMM prior to the incident about fixing the general structures of the flats in Actonville.

An inquest docket was opened on Sunday, May 15, by the Actonville Police and the incident will be investigated. No arrests have been made.

Read: Man falls to his death in Actonville