Siblings mourn mysterious death of children in fire

The incident happened on Saturday night. The children, Noxolo Mlotshwa and her cousin Mandisa Maseko, told their mothers they would go to sleep early as it was a cold evening.

Indeed, the joyful cousins had an early bath after which they went straight to their room to sleep, earlier than they normally would have done.

At about 19:30 the children’s mothers Delsile (42) and Lizbeth Mhaule (37) decided to chase away several cattle that were roaming around the yard. ”The cattle ran downhill and we followed them just to make sure they wouldn’t follow us back. We left the burglar door closed and the house was not locked. On our way back we could smell something like fire and never thought it was from our house. We just thought the neighbours were burning their garbage. Coming closer the blaze was glowing bigger and that was when we realised the flames were coming from the back of our RDP house,” she said.

”The house was engulfed in smoke. We called for help and neighbours came in their numbers to try to put out the fire, but the blaze was just too much. “We ran around and called for help, calling our babies by names, but they never responded. My brother and his friends even tried to enter the room, but they couldn’t due to the smoke,” they said. The police and firefighters were called to the scene. The two children were declared dead on the scene by a pathologist.

“My grandchildren died a very painful death. One of them was found with her head facing the direction of the window and the other one facing the exit, but they couldn’t help themselves. I wish the police will work day and night to arrest and prosecute the perpetrator. He has caused us so much pain. I will always remember the gruesome picture of their charred bodies lying helpless on the floor. Some of their body parts were discovered the following day on the scene,” said Joyce Mhaule.

“I didn’t know I was spending the last Good Friday with my grandchildren. We wish for justice to take its course,” she said. According to the victims’ mothers, they had had an altercation with a young man earlier, who had allegedly threatened to teach them a lesson.

“My sister even left her own room; we were now sharing my room because the boy threatened to harm us. He told us we were on a list of people he needed to deal with,” added Lizbeth.

Delsile said they would always remember their children whom they thought would change their situation for the better. The mothers of the deceased lost all their belongings in the fire.

The Disaster Management Unit of the City of Mbombela Local Municipality donated mattresses and blankets to the family.

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Local water tanker owners also donated water. The children will be buried on Saturday.

The Mpumalanga police have opened an inquest docket following the incident. No arrests have been made so far. Col Donald Mdhluli, provincial spokesperson for the SAPS, said the police were still waiting for the post-mortem results to determine the cause of the children’s death.