Illegal connection kills little girl
‘We are watching our kids die like flies’
Illegal electricity connections in Tswaing View, north of Pretoria, have claimed another life.
A five-year old girl was electrocuted while playing outside with her sibling last week.
Omphile Motau died hardly a fortnight after a seven-yearold boy was electrocuted in the neighbourhood while playing outside his parents’ home.
The youngest victim, twoyear-old toddler Lebo, died in May when he stepped on one of many cables crisscrossing the neighbourhood.
Matlhodi, 30, Omphile's mother, blamed fellow residents for her daughter’s death.
“I blame them because I have not connected electricity but now I have lost a child because of this illegal connection. As a community we have removed the cables many times but they reconnect them. How many more children must die?”
The unemployed mother of six said Omphile was playing with her siblings on that fateful Friday afternoon when she heard her 10-year-old daughter screaming, “Mama, Omphile is dying.”
She rushed to find Omphile, her fourth-born child, lying lifeless next to the exposed cable.
“She had earlier on that day begged me to buy her a cake. Her father brought the cake in the evening only to find out she was dead.”
Residents had connected cables to a power supply for a reservoir. The transformer blew up in October due to overloading. Now cables are connected to the main supply.
Given Hlongwane, a member of Tswaing Community Development, said they had marched to the municipality for electricity but in vain. “This is not the first or last child to die. Until all these connections are removed and the area electrified, more children will die.”
Mojalefa Sebelwane said: “All we can do now is watch our children die like flies.”