"Where is my nephew? I want him back alive or have his own bones for burial."

This is the question Rose Shivambu is asking about the missing 11-year-old Lucky Ndove of Mhingaville. In the meantime, the community is boiling with anger at the man who left with him to shoot birds with catapults last week.

After the boy’s disappearance, a rumour spread like wildfire that the man who had left with him had killed him for muti. The rumour has left the community in a frenzy, with people destroying property and engaging in acts of violence, which left more than 70 of them arrested by the local police at Saselamani. The community rejected the version of the person who left with him and who came back with the boy´s clothes and said the boy had been eaten by crocodiles.

Lucky Ndobe (11), a Grade 3 learner at Rhangani Primary School, used to go hunting with the man who is a neighbour and the family did not suspect that the hunting trips would eventually end in a tragedy. "They would go out to the bush and later come back with birds and everything was well," said his anguished brother, Gladman. On the fateful day, March 6, Lucky came back from school, ate his lunch and left without family members’ noticing him. Only neighbours saw him leaving with the suspect and some other boys. It is alleged that, after their hunt, two of the boys ventured into the water and started bathing and that was when Lucky was dragged off by a crocodile, never to be seen again. The other boys and the suspect are alleged to have witnessed the incident, but the community and the family strongly believe that the boy was killed for muti as his body was never found, even after search parties spent the whole day searching for the body.

The suspect is alleged to have only the boy’s clothing and he told the family the boy had been eaten by the crocodile, which the family strongly disputes. A dark cloud is hanging over the family with no answers about the whereabouts of their son or his remains after the man suspected of having killed him was whisked away by the police before he could shed light on what had really happened.

This has left the family angry and confused. Rose Shivambu, an aunt of the boy, said they had already given up hope after a week of fruitless searches. "I understand and accept that he is gone forever, but we would like to see his bones so as to give him a decent burial," she said. Shivambu said they never thought something this bad could happen, especially something done by a person whom they regarded as a good neighbour. "We are left hopeless because even the people we relied on for help have rendered us defenseless after arresting all who were helping us in the search. The police have really rubbed salt in our wound," she said.

Shivambu said they were putting all their hopes in the promise by the MEC for Safety and Liaison, Mr Samson Ndou, who visited the family last week and promised that no stone would be left unturned in the search for the boy. "What else can we do? We will just wait and see, and we are putting our hope in God," she said.

Meanwhile, 38 people appeared before magistrate Daniel Maluleke at the Saselamani magistrate court and were charged with public violence and malicious damage to property. Two of them were released on their own recognizance due to ill health and the others were remanded in custody and will appear again for a formal bail application on March 26.