Social services department admits teen to rehab centre

AFTER many sleepless nights the desperate mother of a 15-year-old Marikana boy she chained to a gas cylinder slept peacefully for the first time in years.

The mother, 42, and her family moved to the informal settlement in 2014 when people from various areas occupied a plot of privately owned land.

The settlement in Philippi East has been in the headlines after 11 people were shot dead on September 30 in what appeared to be an alleged battle between residents and gangs.

The relieved mother told Weekend Argus her son had finally been taken in by the social services department after many failed attempts.

She said she had been turned away at the Bosasa Youth Development Centre and told her son could only be admitted after being referred by the courts.

To protect her son from angry mobs and drugs, the desperate mother said she had been left with no option but to chain him up.

“I am happy he is getting the care he needs, the care I could not give him because I do not know how to deal with drug addicts.

“My son’s life has been spared and I can only hope that by the time he leaves rehab I will have found a new place to live. Marikana is no place to raise children,” she said.

The grateful mother of four also said residents were now approaching her to “confess about incidents where the community had almost come to my house to get him. They would have had to beat and kill me first, there is no way I would have allowed them to get to him”.

The boy, who confessed to having feelings of anger after his father denied paternity when he was just 6, is said to “be settling in nicely” at a treatment centre.

The troubled teen dropped out of school in Grade 6, but had started using drugs and experimenting with benzine in 2015 before leaving school.

In a previous article the Weekend Argus said: “The site is part of a 200-hectare patch owned by Power Development Projects, H&T Prop, PJL Prop, Anica Delicio, Mario Salvatore Delicio and Annemarie Delicio.

“In April 2013, backyarders began erecting structures on the land with the support of shack dwellers’ organisation Abahlali baseMjondolo, which claimed to be occupying the land to “minimise crime in the Lower Cross Roads area”.

However, information given to the publication indicates that Marikana informal settlement makes up 46-ha and the Delicios sold their property 10 months ago while the H&T Prop disposed of its major shareholding nearly a year ago and the PJL group recently disposed of its.

Weekend Argus apologises for any misinterpretation or misunderstanding. asanda.sokanyile@inl.co.za