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Community members gathered at Ka-Maceke village in search of a missing man.
Sibusiso Ndlovu and Tsakisi Muhlari
(The Post News)- It has been over three weeks since Timothy Ubisi (45) went missing on the 5th of June, and he was last seen in Ka-Maceke village near Masingitana High School and since then, he is nowhere to be found. As Timothy had neither a wife nor children, it took the community members a long time to realize he was missing.
The community members came to notice his absence on June 9th. They quickly investigated, and they discovered that Timothy had been missing since Wednesday, and his neighbors confirmed that he had gone to do grocery shopping in Acornhoek. When he returned, he placed the groceries inside his house and went to his neighbor, who had called him, to collect the money he owed him.
It is said that when he left, he did not go back to his home. Instead, he crossed a valley to another community nearby to buy a traditional beer (Umqombothi). According to one of the community members, he left from about 17:00 p.m. to 18:00 p.m., from about 1 km from his place to Ka-Maceke village, and he never returned.
Yvonne Ubisi, Timothy’s niece, said, “The person we are searching for is my uncle, and he went missing on the 5th of June. ”On Sunday, the community and forums tried looking for him on the valley until they decided to find out what happened to him from the place where he was drinking alcohol (Ka- Tivana), and they indeed confirmed that he was at the place, and he did buy alcohol, and he drank but where he disappeared to after, they never saw him.
The community forums with the little information that they had, they explained to the community and the family members what they were told from the family where Timothy is reported to be when he was last seen, and they decided that they must go back to the same place where he was drinking to hear more of what exactly happened and only to find out that the statement had changed. It was confirmed that, indeed, he went to Ka-Tivana family and bought some beers and a bottle of traditional beer (Umqombothi) and sat down and drank it.
“On the first day they told us that he bought some beers, and he left. They never knew where he went. When we went there for the second time, they told us that he bought some beers and a litter of traditional beer (umqombothi) and sat down and drank it after he bought other beers when he wanted to leave. He then wanted to use the small gate only to find out it was locked, and he told the owner that it was locked, it was dark, he was scared” explain Yvonne.
“There was a lady and man at the place, and they told him that he should stay behind and would leave along with him when they were done drinking. After that, when they left that place, they said that they took the right route, and he took the left lane, and they don’t know what happened to him from there.” she added. A case was opened on the 10th of June and, since from there, the police have not uncovered anything yet. The community forums informed the police that since there were places, they could not search places like valleys and streams and where there were long grasses they were afraid to go to.
The police came with divers to search under the waters, but they didn’t find anything. The community members were enraged by the police response when they informed them that they needed detection dogs, since they made a promise to bring them to improve the search, but since 6pm there were no dogs at the site.
“The police never helped us; they have not brought along detection dogs after the divers, and a report came through saying that the person controlling the dogs has fallen sick. From when did the person fall sick and whether another police dog will come or not, they don’t know. Police were called by the forum and a case was opened at 10” said Ubisi.
The reason that the police were called was because the community members suspected that Timothy might be in the valley thinking that they might have a problem because, after shopping, he had passed through it. The police searched the entire place, the valley and stream but couldn’t find anything.
There are still no signs that the person might have gone missing from this valley or not, but what the community members discovered during their search was a pair of boots, but they were unable to understand if they were his or not and the police took the boots with them.
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