From knife to gunfire: The perilous continuum of violence across Limpopo

By Onie Ndoro | 1h ago

What Sekai said startled me. It was almost a shout. “That man…” she said, her voice was hardly audible, “he’s standing right behind you.”

I turned my head round just in time. It was the man from the woods. He held an ugly okapi knife. He tried to drive the knife into my heart. I barely deflected the knife as I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. I was off balance. He turned around to finish me off when Sekai hit him on the head with a piece of granite rock. The rapist fell on the ground.

She looked petrified. “What have I done?”

“Let’s go,” I said. I picked up my back pack. Sekai followed behind me as if in a trance. After a few steps, she stopped.

“I am not coming with you,” she said. This was no time for games. I was done with her. She had brought me nothing, but trouble from the time I met her. We were going to part ways anyway and this was as good as any time. I did not stop. When I looked back, she was walking in the opposite direction. I felt a sudden sense of loss, but I continued walking away. What was going to happen to her if the rapist followed her again? I shuddered to think about it.

I felt pain in my shoulder. The knife had not cut deep, but a little blood had found its way out.

When I arrived in Musina town, I went at Sasol Service Station. It was still early morning and the town was coming to life. I wanted to hike for transport to Egoli.

There were a few people there. Some of them looked desperate like me. They were border jumpers. I was hoping to see Fatso. He was not around. What had happened to him? I had last seen him before the crossing on the banks of the Limpopo River. I was sure he was still alive.

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A car came along. It was a white sedan. We all jostled to get in. Only one person got in. It had other passengers already. My situation was desperate. I was getting jumpy. It was safer to travel in the morning before there were too many police roadblocks on the N1. The police would demand passports as they were always on the lookout for border jumpers.

It was difficult to count on luck on the N1. Most of the police officers accepted bribes and they let you pass. But there was always a chance to meet an overzealous police or home affairs officer who did not take bribes. These were the dangerous ones and they would ruin all your plans. You would be deported as soon as possible.

A white Toyota Quantum suddenly screeched to a halt in front of us. I found a seat. I was relieved. It had three other passengers before it picked us up at Sasol garage. I was always on the lookout for the small details. One never knows, so it’s always best to check for something that does not fit a pattern. If there’s a break in a pattern, it might also spell danger.

My guard was down, so I did not notice anything odd. I liked the urgency of the driver. As soon as the kombi was full of passengers, he quickly drove away. Some of the drivers would demand payment before the journey and even waste valuable time by filling the tank with fuel.

I sat next to a woman who clutched her handbag tightly on her laps. She was nervous. She probably had a shop selling clothes back home in Zimbabwe and was coming to buy more stock. People hardly talked together for lack of trust.

“Do you have a charger?” The woman suddenly said. I gave her the charger. She smiled nervously with relief. We had travelled for about five kilometres. I was feeling drowsy and soon I was going to fall asleep. I tried to forget about Sekai, but I kept thinking about her. What was she going to do? What was going to happen to her? She had lost her child in the Limpopo River. What was she going to tell her husband?

I must have fallen asleep when I was suddenly woken up by many voices and cries of anguish. I rubbed my eyes. The Toyota Quantum was parked. There were trees all around. It was hidden from the highway.

“Shut up all of you!” It was one of the passengers we had found on board. He had a semi-automatic pistol, the Glock type. It was pointed. This was a robbery. I suddenly felt sick. The woman who had borrowed a phone charger from me was breathing hard.

“Handover everything you have, your money and your cellphones.”

The driver was part of it. “If you cooperate, no harm will come to you,” the driver said. They were three of them. They started collecting valuables and money, row by row. I handed over my phone and the little money I had. It was about R370. It included the transport fare which I had not yet paid. The driver laughed at my phone.

“This phone of yours is too outdated, no one can buy it” he said. He tried to return it to me but one of the robbers snatched it. He banged it against the metal part of the door and threw it away in the bushes as far away as possible.

I slowly watched my Joburg dream going up in smoke.

The woman next to me refused to hand over her handbag.

“Don’t waste our time,” shouted the driver. He moved to her and gave her a hard slap on her left cheek. The slap sounded like thunder in a tea cup and then it was over for her. She handed over everything . She was carrying a lot of money, wads and wads of neatly packed cash. The other guy pointed the gun at her.

The whole robbery lasted for less than five minutes and it was quickly over. “Once we open the door, run for your lives,” the driver said. He had a boyish face and I think he was the one to watch out for. Some people were born cruel even if they have the looks of a saint. He now carried a gun. We all scrambled for the door as everyone tried to get out first.

I was one of the first to get out of the vehicle. Two or three shots rang out behind me. I saw someone fall to the ground. I continued running blindly heading for the trees.

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