Township men find missing daughter in Kempton CBD

A fearless mother said she brought a group of men from the townships to save her daughter from Kempton Park CBD criminals on August 12.

Fikile Mkhatshwa initially walked the streets of Tembisa and Kempton Park looking for her daughter and even looked for her in hospitals but without success.

One day she walked into EXPRESS’ offices as her legs couldn’t take it anymore and asked for help to find Portia Nxumalo (29) who left home for an employment opportunity.

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“After the story was published a lot of Kempton Park women called me because they were touched by the story but some man with a foreign accent called me to try and deceive me. He told me my daughter was somewhere in Kempton Park and alluded that she seemed fine. I realised the man wanted to end my search because it now was in the media and I snapped and shouted at him.

“I told him wherever you are hiding or holding my daughter you better release her or I am coming to find her.

“That was why, on August 12, I decided to take men from the township and we traveled from Bramfischer, Soweto, to go and look for her. Some people with good hearts had already phoned and told me where to look in the CBD as they had seen her in the area.

“When we arrived at one particular place in the CBD, we discovered she had just left. As we were there I saw this young woman clashing with foreign national men and screaming that these men were used to beating them and they must go ahead and beat her.

“I think they said something in the line of she did not make money and they were angry because of that. Those men started beating her and threw papers at her.

“The men I was with started tracking Portia’s cellphone. I do not understand how those things work but they said she was someone else and they called her. As we were travelling to find her, they realised she was moving in our direction on Monument Road.

“We stopped and a VW Polo filled with women approached. As the Polo came closer we expected it to stop but it sped past and stopped ahead of us. A woman driver climbed out of the vehicle and told one of my men they had dropped her a few stops behind and we went and found her,” said the mother.

Mkhatshwa said her daughter left home for the first time in July 2016 over a promised job opportunity but returned home in October, claiming the woman she lived with was a bad influence. In November she asked to go and fetch her belongings but she never returned until now.

Mkhatshwa said she began stressing over Portia because she had left behind her 10-year-old son and her absence was starting to affect him physiologically.

“Another thing that stressed me was that I had heard people, who had come across her, said she was ill and her legs were swollen. When I tried to communicate with her she would not respond to my calls and texts. One day she responded to my call and said she was in hospital but did not say which hospital and why. That’s why I also searched for her in hospitals.

“Because of the article, Capt Jethro Mtshali of Kempton Park SAPS asked EXPRESS to ask me to come and see if I can identify one body of a woman who was murdered and dumped in Rhodesfield. At that point I was just shaking and I was scared for what could’ve happened to my daughter.

“Luckily some callers gave me hope because they said she could still be in the CBD and that was when I decided to bring the men to fetch my daughter. Today I can confirm she is at home and we also learned she had been ill because she has anemia, hence her swollen legs,” said Mkhatshwa.

Mkhatshwa encourages mothers who may suspect their daughters are being used in Kempton Park by criminals to go and fetch them. “Those people are using our children for their criminal activities.”