After chain ordeal, ill man dies in hospital

A MAN who was chained and kept prisoner in his home for years has died at a mental hospital.

The Daily Dispatch first reported on Siyabonga Solomoni, 28, in January when his father, Simphiwe, alerted the paper to his plight.

For 12 years he suffered from an undiagnosed illness that left him uncommunicative and at times violent, causing his family to adopt the desperate measures.

When the Dispatch visited his home in Duncan Village earlier this year he was chained in a sparsely furnished room with a foul stench. One could hear the clinking of chains, murmuring and laughter coming from the room.

He was apparently kept this way for years because his family feared the harm their son could do them, the community and himself.

After numerous stories in the paper Siyabonga was eventually taken to a mental health facility in Kirkwood in the Sundays River Valley. He died a few days ago.

Speaking to the Dispatch yesterday, Simphiwe said: “I used to keep in touch with social workers at Kirkwood and they said they suspected he had TB. They would take him for tests and await results.

“When they got the results back they said it was pneumonia.”

Simphiwe said he received a call on November 18 that Siyabonga had died.

“They said he had suffered from dyspnoea [difficulty breathing].”

The father said he was not coping because he had seen an improvement in Siyabonga when he had visited him at the institution before, but he accepted that nothing would change now.

“I wonder if he had gotten help from the government earlier ... if this would not have been avoided.

“I’m not complaining, but I do wonder,” said Simphiwe.

He said his son’s funeral would be held at the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Pefferville at 10am on Sunday.