The burning of houses in Malamulele Township after their owners received threatening SMSs during the past two weeks has made some people anxious and had tongues wagging in the area.

Recently, two sisters, Vongi Mashaba (34) and Queen Shibambu (43), both of whom live in the same township of Malamulele, had their houses torched after receiving threatening SMSs.

They now want the police to unmask the perpetrator, hoping he will be arrested. Vongi, a driver at Thulamela Municipality, was divorced in 2011 and has been receiving messages since parting with her husband from someone purporting to be her ex-husband. This year she received a message that she would feel pain and that her house would be burnt down. This did indeed happen on 20 September 2015. She lost thousands of rands in the attack and it has still not been repaired, mainly because she lacks the finances to repair her house.

After her divorce, Mashaba stayed with Shibambu, before the latter, who is originally from Plange Village at M’tititi, bought a stand and built a house.

In the late hours of Saturday, Shibambu received an SMS that she was going to pay that night, because she was the one who was the guilty party in the divorce. “I had received messages before, but that night I did not sleep because I was told it was going to happen, and indeed it happened,” said Shibambu. The SMS indicated that there were still people the assailant was looking for who were involved with Vongi. When it finally happened, Shibambu said she heard a banging sound. She went out of the house to see what was happening and she saw that one of the rooms had caught fire.

“What I did was to move my cars to an adjacent yard while, at the same time, calling the police and fire brigade. The police responded very fast, but by the time the fire brigade arrived, everything was burnt to ashes,” she said.

Nothing was saved from the house and the damage is estimated at more than half a million rands.

The two incidents have sent shock waves through Malamulele Township, with residents not knowing who will be the next victim.

In both instances, the sisters are blaming the police for not assisting them in time.

“I showed the police the SMS and wanted to open a case, but a relative of my former husband who works at the police station told me not to open a case. The threats stopped, but they were finally carried out when my house was burnt down,” she said.

She further indicated that if the police had acted timeously, they would have made arrests already and that her house and that of her sister would not have been burnt.

Limpopo police spokesperson Col Ronel Otto said the police would thoroughly investigate the incident.

"We have opened arson cases and we have assigned the case to seasoned detectives. We hope a breakthrough will be made soon."

We are also going to investigate why the women were not given help when they lodged a complaint at the police station,” she said..