Saturday afternoon, May 30, turned into a nightmare for a group of boys and members of the Bhadeni community near Bivane Dam.
The boys were playing soccer at a sports field in Bhadeni when they were approached by police officers. Paulpietersburg SAPS, together with the Zululand Cluster Task Team, were carrying out routine duties to enforce Covid-19 regulations when they noticed the boys.
When the boys saw the officers, they scattered in all directions and some of them opted to jump into the dam to escape.
One of the boys couldn’t manage to swim across the dam and got tired halfway across. His friends advised him to turn back, but the boy refused, since he was afraid of the officers at the side of the dam. His friends tried in vain to keep him afloat, but he eventually drowned.
Vryheid and Newcastle K9 Search & Rescue teams were activated. The teams searched until sunset, when it became too dark to continue. They resumed the next day, when the Richards Bay Search & Rescue Unit joined the two teams.
The boy’s body was thought to be 33 metres deep at the bottom of the dam. The exact spot was clearly marked and search operations were stopped, since the teams on site only had the capacity to work within 30 metres deep.
Units from Port Shepstone and Pretoria K9 Search & Rescue were summoned to continue the search, since they have the capability to search beyond 30 metres.
The situation with community members was tense, but the procedures and challenges to recover the body were explained to those who had gathered at the dam. At one stage, the search teams had to call in all the witnesses to identify exactly where the boy had drowned to enable them to intensify the search. The search continued for a week until the boy’s body was eventually discovered on the southern side of the dam, approximately one and a half kilometres from the spot where he had initially drowned.
All disciplines were mobilised to attend the scene and the body was identified by family members before being removed by the Forensics Department. The community has a different understanding of the incident and they blame the SAPS for the tragedy, allegedly threatening to riot once the body was recovered.
Eight suspects were arrested and charged with contravening the Covid-19 regulations. They appeared in the Paulpietersburg Magistrate’s Court on June 1.

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