The bodies of Nqobizitha Zulu (5) and Tshiamo Rabanye (6) were found, missing several body parts, on 20 April after they went missing from Tshiamo’s home in White City, Soweto, on 19 April.

“We can confirm that the female suspect is a close relative of one of the victims,” Gauteng police spokesperson Mavela Masondo told Daily Maverick.

The suspects are a 50-year-old woman and her 39-year-old partner. The woman is said to be a traditional healer, or inyanga.

And the woman joined the search party looking for the missing boys, Ngobozitha’s grandfather, Anderson Mdingi, told media at a memorial service for the boys at Isisekelo Primary School on Wednesday, 26 April. “I was summoned by the Moroka police last night (Tuesday) and that is when as a family we first knew about the identity of (those arrested).”

It was then that the family realised that one of the suspects had been with them throughout the search for the pair.

More arrests possible

The police have not ruled out the possibility of further arrests.

The bodies of the two boys were discovered on Thursday, 20 April, by concerned community members and the area’s Community Policing Forum, about 1.5km from one another in Rockville and in White City.

“There is nowhere we didn’t go as a community in search of the boys, yet all the while the killer was with us during the search. Isn’t that enough to explain the community’s rage?” community member Thuli Memela asked.

Following Gauteng MEC for Education Matome Chiloane’s speech at the memorial service, many Soweto residents who spoke to Daily Maverick expressed their fury over the murders.

“If you paid attention to MEC Matome’s speech, you would have picked up the mood. We are not here for games; tomorrow it will be your child,” Memela said.

In his speech, Chiloane emphasised that he wasn’t condoning vigilante justice. “I am not saying an eye for an eye,” he said.

Chiloane said, however, that the authorities were determined to establish who had ordered the murders.

Fake healers

A number of traditional health practitioners who attended the gathering asked not to be painted with the same brush as the suspect who is said to be a traditional healer.

“We attended the memorial service to support the family, but to also cleanse our tainted image as traditional healers. We work in communities, with communities, and we need to give them as much support as they give us,” one traditional healer said

“But what we are seeing is that fake healers are making money in our name, not just here but all over Soweto and elsewhere in the country.”

According to the police, the two suspects  were due to appear in the Protea Magistrate’s Court on Friday, 28 April. DM