People stood by while a Mozambican man, Emmanuel Sithole, was
cornered, stabbed in the heart and left to die. This happened yesterday
in Johannesburg and yes, he died from his wounds. Killed just for being
from another African country.. and the story told by the journalist who
witnessed this brutal stabbing is heartbreaking! See more photos and
read the full story from Times Live after the cut…
The brutal death of Emmanuel Sithole
Shortly before 7am yesterday April 18th, Sunday Times journalists were
in Alexandra township, near Sandton, speaking to shop owners who had
their businesses looted overnight. Children played, people walked the
streets, some stopped to gawk at the carnage from the night before. Then
this happened …
In a gutter in Alexandra a Mozambican man stopped and lay down. The gash to his chest meant he could go no further.
At the day clinic less than 100m away they could not help him. The
doctor scheduled to be on duty did not show up because he was a
foreigner and feared being a victim of xenophobia.
It began on Friday night when mobs blockaded Arkwright Avenue, one of
the main thoroughfares in Alexandra, with rubble and burning tyres.
Foreign-owned shops’ roofs were ripped open and metal gates torn away as
looters went on the rampage.
Outside one spaza shop, a man in a black corduroy jacket and red shirt was walking along the road.
Suddenly a young man dressed in a grey tracksuit jacket beat him over
the head with a wrench. The red-shirt man tried to fend off the blows,
his arms raised. He stumbled back, falling into rubbish strewn by the
roadside. The blows with the wrench rained down. Then the bludgeoning
stopped and the man with the wrench moved away.
“Are we safe here?” asked a South African woman watching the attack.
The man in the red shirt got up. Now another man with a beige spottie
approached, holding an okapi knife high above his head. Again, the man
in the red shirt raised his hands, pleading for mercy. But his pleas
were in vain. He was stabbed … again and again.
The two grappled and fell to the floor. The man with the wrench
returned. Finally, a lanky young man sprinted towards the man among the
rubbish, kicking him in the head. The young man pulled a butcher’s
knife. A man in a black leather jacket who had discouraged the attack
grabbed the wrist with the butcher’s knife. The attackers fled.
The red-shirt man tried to get up but fell. Finally he made it to his feet. Feebly, he walked up the road.
Do you know why they attacked you? Who are you? Where are you from, we asked him.
He turned his head towards the questions fired at him, his face
pleading. He said nothing. His shirt was drenched, a 2cm gash in his
chest.
Metres further he stumbled and lay down in the gutter. He struggled to sit up and fell down
“Help me get him into the car. Help me, please,” said photographer
James Oatway, looking around at the men gathered around him. One stepped
forward, reluctantly.
Up the road, at Alexandra Day Clinic, nurses did what they could. There
was no doctor; he would have to be taken to Edenvale Hospital.
Along the way the man was flailing wildly, sitting up, lying down, wincing with pain. The wound to his chest was gushing now.
At Edenvale Hospital a lone gurney stood at the entrance. The porters
sat in a room with tinted windows. Oatway pleaded for help. The man in
the car was critical, he said.
Slowly one porter rose and scribbled in a book. Then the other, both
now ambling towards the hospital entrance. Inside the car the red-shirt
man looked lifeless.
“He’s dead. We can’t take him,” one porter pronounced.
There was no pulse. Then a gag reflex. He’s alive.
Inside the ICU, doctors compressed his chest, massaging his heart.
After nearly seven minutes a ventilator was used. Shortly after 9am
Emmanuel Sithole was pronounced dead. He was Mozambican. The stab wound
to his chest had penetrated his heart.
In his pockets, R285 and 10c in change and a cellphone. His phone would ensure he did not die nameless.
On his wrist, three armbands read: “United for Bafana.”
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