The community suspects one of the residents to be responsible for the disappearance of the child, and insinuated that the SAPS interfered with the original CCTV footage obtained.
Nhlakanipho went missing last Sunday. Apparently, his aunt Sarah Nkosi was able to identify the alleged suspect with the child entering a KFC outlet, through CCTV footage obtained by the police at a filling station in Belfast.
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Lydenburg SAPS spokesman, Capt Alfred Moela, confirmed that the police are working on the case and investigations are still pending, while they are following up all the leads that may help to find the child.
“On Tuesday August 6 after we heard the rumours that the child was seen entering the KFC outlet in Belfast with somebody, the police took Sarah, the aunt of the missing child, to Belfast to see if there was footage of the child on camera.
“On their arrival they found, according to the investigator, the KFC outlet does not have cameras and they had to use CCTV footage captured at a filling station opposite the establishment.
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“It was unfortunate as they were not able to get a clear vision from the footage, because it was a bit far and they could not identify the man and the child who were walking in the KFC.”
Moela told Steelburger/Lydenburg News that they received a complaint on Friday August 9, that the community was converging next to the alleged suspect’s house, demanding that the child be returned. The police intervened and requested the child’s family go to Belfast to view the footage again, because Sarah’s statement was not correlating with the police’s.
“Upon their arrival at the filling station, the manager was not available. The police contacted him, but he was on holiday and said he would only be available on Monday August 12.
“Arrangements were made to go back to Belfast on Monday where they viewed the same footage for verification of what they saw on Tuesday August 6. According to the investigator the footage was still the same as what they viewed previously and was not clear enough to identify the people.”
Moela said the suspect was taken in for questioning and there was no tangible proof that linked him to the missing child.
“Sarah alleged that the footage they saw was not similar to the first footage that she had seen, and alleged that the police and the store manager might have tampered with the footage. This is not true. It could lead to another investigation of tampering with the evidence, which is a serious case,” Moela commented.
The police are pleading with the Coromandel community to come forward with any information that might lead to the successful tracing of the child. Contact
Lt Col Dibakwane at 082-303-9799 for any information regarding the disappearance of Nhlakanipho.
