Daily Sun (June 20 2013) - A 13-YEAR-OLD schoolgirl has been rescued from a gang of armed kidnappers by a quick-witted SunGirl! Over a dramatic eight hours, reporter Tebogo Thamage tracked down the girl by cellphone after getting a frantic call from the girl's mother. YOU'RE MY LAST HOPE, THE MOTHER CRIED TO TEBOGO!
Yesterday the teenaged Bongi - not her real name, as neither she nor her family can be identified - was back home with her mother after an ordeal in which she was kept in a dark room and given no food or water. By keeping in touch with her by phone, the SunGirl was able to find out her location.
Bongi was eventually dumped in the veld, in the cold night without shoes or warm clothing, where Tebogo found her.
This is SunGirl Tebogo's story . . .
WHEN I received the phone call on Tuesday, it sent chills down my spine. The frantic 32-year-old mother in Mmakau, North West, said her daughter Bongi went missing on Monday at about 5pm and the police were too slow in helping her. She said I was her last hope of finding her daughter alive. When I drove to the family home, Bongi's mother told me Bongi's cellphone was still on, but nobody was talking at the other end.
I urgently called a friend to have the cellphone tracked and at 7pm that day, it was found to be somewhere between Ga-Rankuwa and Mmakau, about 20km from Bongi's home. I kept calling the cellphone but all I heard was clicking that sounded like someone playing with a gun.
On the third attempt, Bongi answered! The frightened girl told me she did not know where she was, but she was in a shack with no windows and a bed with no furniture. Outside, she said, were many men with long guns and knives.
Over the phone Bongi told me the men who grabbed her were very old and spoke a foreign language. However, she recognised one of them as a man who used to be her late father's friend. She hadn't been harmed but she was given no food or water. And she wasn't told why she was abducted.
I immediately called Brigadier Tummi Shai from the Police Headquarters. She involved the Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU) and the Gauteng K9 Unit. But I was not going to wait for them.
I called Bongi again and told her to see if she could open the door, which she managed to do. Meanwhile, I took her mother, sister, grandmother and stepfather to search for her because although I have been to Mmakau, I'm not familiar with the area. The brave little girl did what I told her to do - take a chance and run for it!
It was after 9pm when we reached the area and I told her to stand where she was until she saw my car. And there she was in my headlights - shivering but alive!
When we found her I stopped the car and ran to her and hugged her to keep her warm. "Thank you, sissy," she said to me.
Later Bongi recalled what happened when she was dumped. She told me: "I cried and begged them not to kill me. They put a cloth on my face and drove with me. They then dumped me in open veld. "I thought they would come back and finish me off. But I didn't know where I was when you called me," said Bongi.
"You said I had to make for a main road and never look back - and I did!"
I took Bongi to Mmakau Police Station where a case was opened. When we got there Bongi's angry gogo gave the cops a real piece of her mind. "You are all useless, my granddaughter would have been killed if it was not for this one girl from Daily Sun!" she yelled at cops. "Get out of my way, you are useless!"
Bongi's mother thanked me and even gave me some chicken to give to my children. It was 1am when I dropped them safely at home . . .
See the Daily Sun mobi site for more on this and other stories....
The Daily Sun is South Africa's largest daily newspaper with an average circulation of 330 000 and a readership of 5.7m (as per AMPS 2012ab). Its Facebook page can be accessed here. It can be followed on Twitter here. To find about advertising on the Daily Sun click here.
Issued through the Politicsweb iService
