Initiates left out in icy night to die
“Circumcised and beaten, they couldn’t make the grade and were turfed out naked into the icy night to die. Their proud rite to manhood ended in death for five young boys when tradition went horribly wrong at winter initiation schools on Nooitgedacht farm near Heidelberg on the East Rand on Monday night.”
‘My boy was initiated against his will’
“Charles Letsoalo, one of the boys who died at an initiation school in Heidelberg, had been kidnapped and forced to go to the school. Violet Letsoalo said that the last time she saw her son was on Thursday when he left for the Aga Thuto Secondary School in Orange Farm, where he was a Grade 8 pupil.”
Beaten ‘for not singing in unison’
Simphiwe Mthimkulu, 18, of Orange Farm: “We paid R10 to attend the circumcision school on top of this mountain (situated in Nooitgedacht farm outside Heidelberg).
“All of us come from Orange Farm Extension 7A and 7B. We are at different high schools in the area. We arrived on June 6 and were due to finish at the end of the month. Our troubles started on Monday night when we failed to sing the songs taught to us by our teachers. All the boys failed to sing in unison, and this angered our teachers.
They took their sticks and started to hit and kick all of us. The teachers instructed us to take off our blankets. We were naked while they took turns beating us.”
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