School staff tell of robbery terror
Staff at a Port Elizabeth primary school have told of their terror at being robbed at gunpoint on the premises on Wednesday.
Employees of Inkqubela Primary and the pupils’ parents have protested for months about the poor security — particularly the lack of a perimeter fence — at the Kwazakhele school.
The department of education now says a fence will be erected next week.
The previous fence was stolen and the school was badly vandalised during the lockdown.
A Herald team arrived at the school a few minutes after
Wednesday ’ s holdup to find its governing body deputy chair,
Charmaine Yani, 54, with a group of parents and the police.
Yani, who also works as a cleaner at the school, described how a man entered the administration office and cocked his gun.
Three other robbers, all armed, then joined him and demanded that everyone hand over laptops, cellphones and anything else of value.
“The educators along with most of the pupils had gone already, ” Yani said.
“Two of the educators were still in the school and my granddaughter [was with me].
“I covered my granddaughter’s face with my apron when the man with the big gun came in.
“They wanted the school computers and laptops.
“I told them ‘ I’m a cleaner, I don’t know where they are’.
“They told the educators to lay down flat on the floor.”
She said the robbers then took the cellphones of those present.
“The six-year-old child of a woman in the school support team ran out crying.
“When the mother ran after the child, they pulled her back by her jacket and asked her where she was going.
“I said ‘ what do they want her to do, because she’s saving her child’s life’.
“The child was running blindly towards the road.
“When they let her go, she screamed for help,” Yani said.
The criminals then opened cupboards and the principal’s office and kicked in the door of the scholar nutrition storage room, apparently in search of laptops, before fleeing on foot.
Police spokesperson Captain Sandra Janse van Rensburg confirmed that four men had taken part in the robbery at the school at about 12.05pm.
“They searched the victims, took their cellphones and ran away.
“Six cellphones were taken and nobody was harmed,” Van
Rensburg said.
She said a case of armed robbery was under investigation.
Since August, the school’s parents, staff and students have embarked on several protests in the hope of receiving assistance from the department of education to fix an array of infrastructure issues at the school, particularly the lack of a perimeter fence.
Eastern Cape education spokesperson Mtima said yesterday Malibongwe that the department was aware of the situation at the school.
“A fence will be provided as early But as the next promise week,” of he a said. new fence did not appease the school’s governing body deputy secretary, Zinzi Nyembezi, 34, who said it had taken a crime for their concerns to finally be taken seriously. “It seems someone must die before this issue of the fence can be regarded as being serious.
“We ’ re afraid, our lives are in danger — not only the parents, the educators and the pupils [too].
“What if they were raped, what if they [robbers] panicked when that child ran and they shot the child?
“This is enough,” Nyembezi said.
Mtima called on the surrounding community to take ownership of the school.
“The community can’t harbour those criminals, they must help the police catch these criminals.
“A school is a centre for community life — the community needs to participate,” Mtima said. “A school is their inheritance as the community.”