Whose vehicle killed Bhekumusa Ndzimandze?
MBABANE – When Cain killed Abel, God rebuked him: “What have you done? Listen, your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground.”
A post-mortem for the death of Bhekumusa Ndzimandze showed he died of multiple injuries which are suspected to have been caused by a vehicle, which knocked him down, along the Bethany- Mahlanya road. The concerning part of this fatality is that the vehicle did not stop after allegedly hitting the pedestrian and sending him flying into a nearby bush.
The Ndzimandze family and Lobamba Lomdzala MP Marwick Khumalo are now calling upon the driver of the vehicle which knocked down Bhekumusa to surrender to the police. They said the blood of their deceased brother was crying out to Almighty God from the ground.
If the driver of the vehicle does not own up to the death of Bhekumusa, MP Khumalo said the law of kharma would take its course. Kharma is a natural law. He asked the police to assist the family apprehend the suspect. “This is a sad story,” he said.
Mandla Ndzimandze, the deceased’s brother, said his brother disappeared from home for eight days. He met his death on his way from work. He was working for one of the companies in Matsapha.
Mandla said Bhekumusa was last seen on May 21, 2022 until a search party retrieved his decomposed body from the bush on the side of the road at Bethany on May 29, 2022.
Mandla said the body of his brother was in a decomposed state and unpleasant to look at, to such an extent that he would be taken from the mortuary this morning to the graveyard. He lamented that they were struggling to accept the loss of their elder brother who died at 42. He said the manner in which he died would definitely traumatise them for the rest of their lives. “I was bold enough to touch his leg; one of them had a fracture. For sure, it was a hit-and-run,” Mandla in an interview yesterday.
He said his brother is survived by two children who are still at school doing Grade VII and Grade I. Since the deceased was a breadwinner, Mandla said he did not know how they would raise his brother’s children because they also struggled to make ends meet.
He said the deceased’s face appeared to them as if he was crying for help in the bush. He did not get the help until his death. “The search party saw his shoe on the side of the road. This led them to the forest where he was found dead,” he said.
He asked good Samaritans to help the children whose mother did not have the means to support them. “My brother was not married at the time of his death,” he said.
Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati confirmed the death. She said police were investigating circumstances surrounding the death of the man. In February 2021, victims of hit-and-run accidents scored victory when a full bench of the High Court declared Section 11 of the Sincephetelo Motor Vehicle Accident Act as unconstitutional.
The section required that hit-andrun victims identify the motor vehicle (that hit them) to be eligible for compensation for general damages.
The law had also required the victim of an accident to have identified the motor vehicle or owner of the vehicle which knocked him or her down in order to be eligible for compensation for general damages from the Sincephetelo Motor Vehicle Accidents Fund (SMVAF).