Murder in Snake Park – the spark that started a fire
This homegrown investigative podcast series digs deep into a single murder case while exposing the forces that have incubated xenophobic violence in SA for decades.
Perhaps one of the greatest joys of listening to a local podcast is entering a familiar soundscape. Right from the opening scene, One Night in Snake Park delivers a strong sense of place through its sounds and voices. We listen to the wind blowing in the narrow alleyways and the metallic pops as corrugated roofs expand in the sun. We hear a group of local neighbourhood children beatboxing for the microphone and a fruit seller describing her wares: “apples, pears, oranges, naartjies, avocados and bananas”.
It’s a snapshot of the community that surrounds the Waka Waka shop in Snake Park on the edge of Soweto. It’s a tranquil scene, but not all is as it seems, as reporter and host Eliot Moleba reminds us: “Normally, customers just walk in and browse through the shelves and pay for their goods at the back of the shop. But today things are different. No one is allowed inside. Instead cash and groceries are passed through thick iron bars at the entrance.”
This scene is a reminder of the violence that haunts the Waka Waka shop and many others like it across South Africa. It was here in 2015 that 14-year-old Siphiwe Mahori was shot and killed and a Somali shopkeeper was arrested for his murder. The shooting sparked a wave of xenophobic violence that, over the next few days, would result in six more deaths and more than 150 arrests. The series investigates what happened on the day that Siphiwe was shot and tracks the case against Yusuf, the man accused of his murder. Early on in the years-long reporting process the team realised that things weren’t adding up. Things became even murkier when they received a tip-off from somebody inside the criminal justice system who said that something was seriously wrong with the case and that they needed to look into it.
Someone had to be lying, but who? And why?
One Night in Snake Park holds up a mirror and forces us to grapple with the tensions and violence constantly brewing just below the surface in South Africa.