Cape Town - An 18-year-old Manenberg youth is behind bars after cops arrested him on Wednesday for allegedly raping and sodomising his four-year-old cousin in their council flat.
Residents say the man is a menace to society and claim he planned the sick attack, which has left the little girl with internal bleeding.
A neighbour, who spoke on behalf of the girl’s family, says her mother, 30, has also been a victim of the man, and woke up one day to find his penis in her mouth.
The 46-year-old woman, who asked not to be named to protect the identity of the family, says the latest incident happened on Friday when the man allegedly planned the rape by sending his aunt, the little girl’s mother, to buy chips so he could be alone with the child.
“It was before jumua’ah (prayer time) and he went into the flat and gave the mother money to go buy chips. When she got back, she found the child crying and asked what happened,” the woman explains.
“The girl told her mommy: ‘Hy het ougat gemaak met my’. ('Mommy he had sexual intercourse with me.')
“When she checked, she saw the child was raped in the front and the back and the child was taken to hospital.”
Bleeding
She says when they arrived at Heideveld Emergency Centre, it was revealed that the child had internal bleeding and she was also treated for a possible sexually transmitted infection.
“They said he tore her inside and she was bleeding. They also put her on treatment for vuil siek (a sexually transmitted infection),” says the neighbour.
She says the little girl as well as another girl, aged five, and two boys, aged nine and one, were removed from the flat by authorities.
“They say he tried with other children also, and the mother woke up one morning a few months ago and he put his penis in her mouth,” she adds.
The neighbour says the mother is “vrek bang” ("dead scared") of the man and did not report him then.
According to a police source, Manenberg cops went looking for the suspect on Monday but could not find him.
On Thursday morning residents spotted him in Manenberg Avenue and alerted police, who nabbed him in front of his friends.
Police spokesperson, Siyabulela Malo, confirms the case and says: “Manenberg police can confirm a case of rape has been registered after reports of a four-year-old girl who has been raped by a relative.
“An 18-year-old man was arrested at about 9.30am and he is expected to appear in the Wynberg Magistrates’ Court on Friday.”