Woman held after boys found dead

THE search for two young boys kidnapped from the Clairwood area has ended after their bodies were found at the weekend and this morning.

It is alleged that a Clairwood woman, who has since been arrested, had a broken-down relationship with her boyfriend.

She had been living with him and his son in the Clairwood area.

It is alleged that she consulted a witchdoctor to help her get her relationship back on track and that the witchdoctor told her to get him the blood of a person with the same DNA as her boyfriend.

On Thursday, a missing person’s report was opened at Montclair SAPS after two boys, both 10 years old, went missing, one being her ex-boyfriend’s son.

Police then took the woman in for questioning and later learnt where the bodies had been dumped.

They found the body of Luyanda Msomi, her ex-boyfriend’s son – presumed to have been strangled with his T-Shirt – in thick bushes near the Clairwood railway station.

According to The Mercury newspaper, Luyanda’s body was found on Saturday afternoon.

Luyanda and his best friend, Njabulo Mankayi, were last seen heading home after school on a bus.

The woman allegedly thought that Njabulo could be a witness to her actions and allegedly killed him by tying his hands and legs and throwing him into the stormwater culvert near Bayhead Road in the Bluff.

The pathway to the culvert leads from an informal settlement in Clairwood.

Since Saturday, the SAPS Search and Rescue unit in Durban and the K9 unit had been searching for the body in the culvert.

Njabulo’s body was recovered from the culvert by police search and rescue personnel this morning.

Police spokesperson Colonel Thembeka Mbhele said the body was spotted floating in the water by Transnet staff, who notified the police. The body was retrieved by divers and identified by the Mankayi family, who were at the scene. The family did not want to speak to the media.

Mbhele said two people had been arrested, including the woman’s friend.

“The suspects will be charged with kidnapping and murder,” she said.