GONE WITHOUT A TRACE
Man disappears in broad day light
The Molelo and Lekau families in Maun have launched a desperate search of their 28-year-old family member who went missing two weeks ago.
Making their search even more frantic are the clothes that are suspected to belong to him, which were found abandoned on the streets, a few houses away from his home this past Monday.
Keorapetse Gaotlhobogwe, affectionately called Dipass by his peers, left his home at Thito ward on a Sunday morning of 15th March, 2020, never to return.
An orphan, who was adopted and raised by the two families of Gaotlhobogwe and Lekau, is suspected to be in danger wherever he is. “He came by my house that Sunday morning. It was around 10am and he was in church uniform, a navy blue suit and a white shirt. That was the last time I saw him or heard from him,” said Lekau.
Kananyo Ponaka Lekau, 44, grew up with the now missing Gaotlhobogwe. He was raised by her mother and she is worried about him. “This is unlike him to disappear without telling anyone,” he pointed out.
What worries the family even more is that the missing man’s “jacket and shirt were found lying in the streets nearby”.
“Gaotlhobogwe worked night shifts for Security Systems, but during the day he went to town to sell mealies at his stall. That Sunday, he told me he was going to church. He was in church uniform and carried a small Bible with him. I did not even notice that he never came back from church until Thursday that week,” explained another family member, Ikobeng Molelo, who treated Gaotlhobogwe like her own son.
“On Thursday, Security Systems employees came home to find out why he has not been reporting for duty since Monday. That is when I realised that he hadn’t come round to my house for a while either. We checked his house and he was not in.”
The 53-year-old woman said she started tracing the young man’s movements from the previous Sunday and couldn’t find exactly where he had disappeared to. “We called almost everyone and visited places that he could have gone to; his girlfriend, church, we even checked the cattlepost and didn’t find him.”
His mobile phone was found at home and his church leaders said he did not arrive that Sunday.
“On Monday, when I was walking home, something on the side of the road caught my eye, I looked closely and realised that it was the same jacket and shirt that he had worn to church. The jacket was hanging lazily on the fence, and I really got scared, I went cold,” Molelo added.
The yard is just in their neighbourhood, but nobody knows how the clothes ended up there. The police are still investigating the matter. Officer Commanding for Maun policing area, Peter Gochela, has confirmed that indeed they are investigating the matter.