When Sabelo Mancam walked into Grocott's Mail this week, he was desperate to find peace – or just someone he could talk to.
When Sabelo Mancam walked into Grocott's Mail this week, he was desperate to find peace – or just someone he could talk to.
Five years ago angry people burned to ashes his home and all his possessions. They beat him so badly, it took him three months to recover. When he left the hospital, he discovered his girlfriend had left him. He says he's still shunned in the community.
Mancam's five years of living hell started in December 2007, when a young woman living in the Transit Camp informal settlement near Extension 7 was sent on an errand to a spaza shop.
She didn't return.
After two weeks her grandmother, Nokhululekile Mtwa, reported her missing.
Police with dogs combed the area to no avail.
Then they arrested Mancam, then 29, and two other men, based on reports that Ntomboxolo "Lele" Bashe had last been seen with them.
Mancam and the others spent three months in jail.
In April 2008 charges against all three were withdrawn because of insufficient evidence.
But two days after he was released, Mancam was attacked by a mob of Transit Camp residents and his house razed.
When Bashe later returned, having been discovered living with her boyfriend in Port Elizabeth, she laid rape charges against Mancam and the other two men.
The four men accused of leading the attack on Mancam were arrested and charged with attempted murder – but it's not justice Mancam seeks today.
It's peace.
With tears in his eyes, Mancam said on Wednesday that he had no one to talk to.
He felt the community owed him an apology. "The woman was not wounded but there are some people who are still looking at me as if I am a kidnapper," he said.
"What did the community say after Bashe showed herself? Nothing! I was beaten, shouted, hated and my shack with my clothes were burned down into ashes," he continued. "There's no one who wants to give me job, I don't have money, and my girl friend ran away."
Mancam, who was a construction worker at the time of his arrest, said the stigma from the case had affected his relationships.
"There's no one who wants to my friend today."
"I'm still blacklisted here in Grahamstown and most people hate me," he said. "I need therapy so that I can work on self integrity and transformation as soon as possible. I am tired of suffering because of being labelled by people. I am also traumatised and very unhappy at the moment. So if anyone can help or do something, I need help."
Mancam, along with Siyazi Ngojo and Phikisile Demele, was released in April 2008 because of insufficient evidence.
