Illigal electricity connections at an informal settlement in Durban claimed the life of a mentally ill woman.
|||Durban - Illegal electricity connections at an informal settlement in Durban claimed the life of a mentally ill woman.
The woman was found dead on Sunday, clutching wires of an illegal electricity connection at the Foreman Road settlement in Sydenham.
Zanele Smbelembele, 20, of Flagstaff, in the Eastern Cape, had been visiting her cousin at the time of the electrocution.
A web of illegal electricity wires runs overhead and lies bare on the ground in the shantytown.
Nokubonga Nywhango, 30, who rents a shack in the settlement, yesterday said she was too devastated to call her cousin’s family in Flagstaff, but could bring herself to relay the message via a neighbour. Smbelembele had been staying with her for less than a month and was expected to return home by month end.
“I am devastated. I don’t know what they will think of me at home. When her body was found, the wires were still in her hand. I was in a state of shock when a neighbour told me that she was dead,” said Nywhango.
The neighbour found Smbelembele’s body an hour after a search for her had begun. She had disappeared earlier after the cousins went to wash their clothes at nearby public toilets, which the community uses as a laundry.
“A neighbour pointed to a person lying near a forest. My body froze and I asked her to see who it was.
“Another neighbour assisted with pliers to cut the wires. At that point my head was spinning. I felt as if I had been hit by a five-pound hammer,” said Nywhango.
Another relative of the dead woman, Fikile Nokhayingana, claimed this had been the second electrocution from an illegal power connection in the settlement this year.
Nywhango survives by selling fruit for her employer at stalls near Berea station.
From her meagre income, R250 goes on monthly rent for her shack, R150 buys food and the rest she sends home to the Eastern Cape. She does not know how the family will cope with funeral expenses since none of them has a formal job.
eThekwini municipality spokesman, Thabo Mofokeng, said people needed to understand that an illegal connection was not only against the law but could also be fatal.
“It overloads the system and results in power break-outs. Disconnections are done on regular basis. But because of resistance from the communities it becomes fruitless. We run campaigns on the dangers,” said Mofokeng.
SAPS spokesman, Colonel Vincent Mdunge, said an inquest had been opened.
nkululeko.nene@inl.co.za
Daily News
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