GEORGE NEWS - "Go fetch your dog, we are done with it (Hambha uyothatha inja yakho siyigqibile)."
These are the words that greeted Thembeka Sam when she arrived at the scene where her son was killed in a mob justice attack earlier this month.
Thembinkosi Sam (31) was buried on Tuesday 16 January after he succumbed to his wounds sustained in a mob justice attack in Thembalethu on 4 January.
He and another man were beaten to death by community members after they were accused of taking money from a child who was sent to a shop.
The two were apprehended by community members who took them to nearby bushes where they were viciously beaten.
It is alleged that women were also involved in the beating.
About 30 mourners, most of them neighbours, gathered at the small shack of Sam's family in the informal settlement Fihla Indoda in Thembalethu for Thembinkosi's funeral proceedings.
Speaker after speaker condemned the mob justice killing and shared words of comfort to the family and Thembikosi's girlfriend, with whom he has an 8-year-old son.
Sam says there have never been any complaints about her son before and no one ever told her that her son was giving the community a hard time.
Speaking with George Herald at the funeral, Thembeka said she doesn't really know what her son was killed for; she only heard the rumour that he took money from a child.
"I don't want to defend my son and say he was not wrong. I don't know if he was involved in crime because at home he never gave me any problems. He was like any other child," she said.
Thembeka said there have never been any complaints about her son before and no one ever told her that her son was giving the community a hard time.
"I honestly don't know his ways outside the house."
She is not going to bring any charges, "but I want the people who did this to know that one day the blood of my child will be asked from their hands.
"For now, let them enjoy their happiness," said a grieving Thembeka.
To date, she said, the police have made no arrests and no one knows who killed her son.
Thembinkosi's death is the latest of many mob justice incidents in Thembalethu throughout last year and early this year.
ARTICLE: ZOLANI SINXO, GEORGE HERALD JOURNALIST, EDITOR IDINGA
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