Joburg Speaker extends condolences to family of raped and killed Orlando girl

City of Joburg’s speaker of the council, Clr Nobuhle Mthembu visited the family of murdered Amantle Samane (6) on 24 October.

Samane was raped and strangled to death by a Mozambican man, Peta Sara Samiao (24), on 21 October.

Samane was allegedly playing with her friends when Simiao lured her to his rented shack where the ordeal took place.

Since then, Simiao has been on the run, and the police, along with residents, searched the streets for him. After being on the run for four days, he was found and arrested at Zola 1, where he was hiding.

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“The situation at our borders is hopeless. We have people with terrible criminal cases coming into the country and we do not even know it. What we have learnt about the suspect is that it is not the first time he committed such a heinous crime, he served eight months in his home country for something similar but he did not kill the child.

“Now he comes to our country, we do not have any information on him and he does even worse, so there is a gap when it comes to immigration and securing our borders,” Mthembu said.

She added what is painful about the situation is that it has happened in the first place.

“We are very reactive instead of being proactive and thinking about the risks. When we stand as citizens and speak out to secure our borders, they start calling us names, but it is to avoid such cases.

“We are not saying we hate foreigners, what we are saying is that they must come here legally so that we know who they are in our country.

“Undocumented foreigners are a big problem in our country, it’s a pity there is nothing we can do to bring back the young girl but at least the suspect is now behind bars.

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“Now we hope we won’t be failed by the justice system because it has a lot of loopholes.

“The same attention they will give to this should be similar to the ones they give to other children who are brutally murdered and abused because this is not something new; we see such cases every year and nothing is being done.”

Ward 31 Clr Bongane Dlamini said that they are thankful for the police and community who worked hard to ensure the suspect was found.

“We are happy. Orlando residents ensured that the suspect was arrested. We thought he wanted to flee the country but it is only through mercy that the police managed to arrest him before he could do so.”

The funeral is set to take place on Thursday, October 31 at Orlando Communal Hall.

Samiao will make his first appearance in court today, October 25.