Daily Sun (August 19 2013) - EVERY day Risuna crossed the dangerous railway line because she wanted the best education possible. But on Friday, her body lay next to the tracks . . .
HER LIFE - AND HER DREAMS - WERE SHATTERED BY A SPEEDING TRAIN!
Risuna Baloyi, a 17-year-old grade 10 pupil, travelled from her home in Lehae to Dlamini, Soweto every morning to get to Ngungunyana Secondary School. If her unemployed mother had money Risuna would take a taxi, but mostly she would hitchhike the 30km to school, crossing the deadly railway line in Kliptown twice a day.
Risuna could have gone to a school much closer to home, but the determined girl wasn't prepared to compromise her mother tongue. The local schools in Lehae offered only isiZulu as a subject and Risuna wanted to learn Xitsonga. For the sake of her language, she left home at 7am in the morning and only got home at 4pm.
On Friday she never got home. Witnesses said she was crossing the line with other young people and by the time they noticed the train it was already on top of them. The others managed to jump out of the way, but Risuna wasn't fast enough. She died instantly, her thighs cut and bleeding, her stomach ripped open.
Risuna's mother, Eunice Nobela told Daily Sun: "My child died because the local schools don't teach Xitsonga." She said Xitsonga-speaking children either had to change to Zulu or go somewhere else.
"When we moved to these RDPs in Lehae our children were not provided with Xitsonga language-schools. It is surprising because there are many Tsonga-speaking children here."
On Friday afternoon Eunice waited for her daughter to come home, but instead she got a call telling her about Risuna's death on the railway line. People living near the Kliptown railway line told Daily Sun children have been killed there by trains before.
"They should build a pedestrian bridge to save our kids," said Sipho Mngomezulu from Kliptown.
Captain Nondumiso Mpantsha from the Kliptown cops said they had opened an inquest case. Daily Sun asked Gershwin Chuenyane of the Gauteng Education Department if the province has schools where mother tongue languages are not taught. "Today is Sunday. Where do you expect me to get the answers?" he said.
See the Daily Sun mobi site for more on this and other stories....
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