KZN woman latest known victim of hate crime

THE body of a 22-year-old woman was found at the Hill area in Kwamakhutha township on Sunday.

Anele Bhengu was reportedly raped and stabbed, and found with her throat slit and stomach cut open after she had left home for her friend’s house on Friday.

According to her aunt, Ntokozo Bhengu, it was her niece’s long-time friend whom she had gone to visit who broke the news to the family on Sunday morning.

She said Anele’s friend told them that on Saturday at about 9pm Anele woke up and alerted her friend that she was going outside to use the toilet.

“Nzama told us that Anele never returned. We only know what the friend told us but we still do not understand why she did not make contact when Anele did not come back during the night,” said Bhengu.

Social Development MEC Nonhlanhla Khoza has urged South Africans to work together in ensuring safety in communities and protecting the members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities from abuse and murder. Anele was part of the LGBT community.

“The brutal murder of this child is symptomatic of the challenges we have in the society. We are left in shock and fear by the killing of our children in this province. Our Constitution was the first in the world to protect people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation. We also became the first in the African continent to legalise same-sex marriages, but we still experience these murders and abuses.”

Khoza said everyone had a responsibility to end these violent crimes.

“We need to get to the bottom of this as to why people have so much hatred towards the LGBTQIA+ community.”

A team of social workers met with the Bhengu family for counselling.

The LGBT community called on government to step up and offer no bail to hate crime perpetrators.

“The ethekwini region has been declared a hot spot because of the high number of hate crime incidents. Therefore, the law and the justice system must step up and properly so. Arrest criminals with heavy sentences without bail,” said Hlengiwe Buthelezi, the KZN executive director of the LGBT Recreation organisation.

Police spokesperson Captain Nqobile Gwala said the motive for the murder was still unknown and Kwamakhutha police were investigating the murder.