His only sin was to meet robbers leaving a robbery scene, and he paid with his life for that. This is a sad tale of how cheap life has become in this country: an innocent life taken for having witnessed another crime.

Meshack Ndou (22) of Bunzhe, Tshififi, outside Thohoyandou, lived with his sister at Muledane. He loved soccer so much that he left home on Sunday for a soccer match at Ha-Mukoma A sina Nndu, a village some kilometers away. That was the last time they ever saw him. He never returned and was found murdered in the bush on Wednesday last week.

It is alleged that after the match, Meshack left with friends and slept overnight at the same village. His sister, Ms Olga Nemauluma, who also stays at the same village, said she saw him on the day of the match, but thought that he had left for home or left with friends like he always did. “I went to the local traditional leader early on Tuesday morning, where I was confronted with the news that my brother had been kidnapped the previous day during a robbery at a local bottle store,” she said.

She said the local civic leaders helped her to look for her brother, but all their efforts were in vain as he was nowhere to be found. She notified all family members about the incident and the matter was reported to the police.

It was later established that Meshack and a friend had gone to a local lounge and café at around nine in the evening and had met two thugs who were leaving the business with a worker they had kidnapped after robbing and shooting the owner of the shop. It is alleged that the robbers came back after a while and kidnapped him after realizing that he knew them and would expose them.

What is ironic about the incident is that the friend he was with when the incident happened never told anybody, not even the police, about the whole incident. After a search by the local community, his body was found on Wednesday in the nearby bushes with fresh blood flowing from it, indicating he was only killed on Wednesday. It is suspected that the robbers had kept him hostage from the Monday until the Wednesday when they panicked after realizing that the community was searching for him and he would tell them what had happened. His body was found with a stack of wood arranged over him and with his hands tied with his belt.

“I just wish he had not gone for the soccer game. He died a terrible death and his death will not fade from our minds,” said his other sister, Livhuwani, who stayed with him at Muledane. “My brother had a premonition about his death. On Saturday, he attended a prayer meeting, which he did not always do. He was preparing for his final departure from this world,” said Livhuwani. She said she could not bear to imagine the pain her brother had gone through during the two days he was held captive before he was killed.

“His body was in a bad state, which indicates they tortured him before they killed him,” she added.

Another sister of the deceased, Mavis Netshitenzhe, said they constantly received threatening calls after the disappearance of their brother. “We are not safe here as they have not yet all been arrested; they might come back and cause us harm,” she said.

Netshitenzhe believe they forced him into giving them family contact numbers before they killed him. “They would just call and not say anything or call and threaten us. We just wish the police would follow those calls and arrest them before they come back and finish us off,” she said. “Our brother died a terrible death and we will never forget what happened. We will always miss him,” said the sad sister.

Kuvhanganani Munyai, who was with the deceased when the incident happened, said he had been confused and could not figure out what actually happened. “We met these two guys holding one of the workers while going out of the shop and we did not know that a robbery had taken place. I went to the café while Meshack went to the lounge, and that was the last I saw him alive,” he said. Munyai said it was sad to lose such a gifted friend because of people who do not want to work but survive on other people’s sweat.

“These people should be hunted and locked in jail forever, they do not belong here,” he said.

Not long ago, a man was found burnt to death under mysterious circumstances at the same village where the incident happened. At the time of the incident, the community believed that he was killed for muti and burnt to confuse the murder. Only last week, a well-known educator who taught at Bunzhe, not far from Meshack’s house, was found murdered under a bridge, not far from the village.