Young initiate dies after rite

A 17-YEAR-OLD initiate has died in Queenstown, barely a week after the official launch of the circumcision season in Tsolo in the former Transkei on Saturday.

Provincial health department circumcision senior manager Dr Luvuyo Bayeni, responding to queries from The Rep, said Vuyisa Ntantiso was a referral patient to Frontier Hospital from Glen Grey Hospital. “He died in casualty at Frontier on June 21 and he underwent the passage of rite on June 13. According to our teams he was a legal initiate. Our clinical assessment shows renal failure or general infection, also known as septicaemia,” Bayeni said.

The department encouraged parents and community members to work with them and allow them to monitor the initiation schools.

Eastern Cape House of Traditional Leaders provincial chairman chief Ngangomhlaba Matanzima said the AbaThembu nation was known for taking good care of initiates but in recent years the Chris Hani area had been having related deaths.

“I am trying to talk to the leaders in the Queenstown area so we can have a men's gathering to discuss the problems and find solutions.”

Matanzima said women had criticised men that they failed to take care of their children for only three weeks of their lives while women carried them for nine months and raised them.

“What these women are saying is true. We sympathise with the family. We know they had hopes of making their son a man and eventually the leader of the family, but now that hope is gone. We ask them to look to God the Almighty for support.”