Youngsters drown in river on KZN coast

A QUICK “dip” in the Umdloti River turned tragic on Sunday, when two youngsters from Verulam misjudged the water levels of the river and drowned.

Mlondi “Pooh” Dlamini, 10, who had just passed Grade 5 and his friend Libongwe “Macingwane” Ngcobo, 11, both from Oakford Primary, died.

The families of the two boys were in shock yesterday, saying they could not believe they would never see them play again.

The two were said to have been inseparable.

Mlondi’s mother, Ziphozonke Dlamini, said she had been at home in the afternoon when she received the news that her son had disappeared while playing in the river.

She rushed to the site and found there was already a large crowd and divers at the scene.

“We heard the sirens (of emergency vehicles while at home) we never thought they were attending to them,” she said.

She told The Mercury that, from the information she has been able to gather, the two boys had left with two others. The other two had gone into a nearby sugar cane field.

“When they returned from the sugar cane field they saw one of the boys in the water struggling. He was too far away and they could not get to him so they ran to ask for help. One of the boys had already disappeared under water.

“The area they were swimming in is under a bridge and the water was a bit high, I do not know whether they had gone to swim there regularly,” Dlamini said.

Speaking about the pain of her loss she said: “I had high hopes for him, he often spoke of his ambition and told people that he wanted to be a police officer.”

Dlamini said Mlondi’s body was the first recovered by divers. “I did not believe he was dead. He had no injuries anywhere, I thought he was still going to wake up.”

Libongwe’s family too was in shock. His uncle, Lethukuthula Mthembu, said he received a phone call and rushed to the river. He said Libongwe’s mother was struggling to make sense of the tragedy.