Pretoria - One person died while scores of others were rescued from illegal initiation schools after the end of the initiation season in Tshwane last week.
Gauteng Emergency Services said a 42-year-old man died at an illegal initiation school in Atteridgeville, and close to 150 initiates were rescued.
Spokesperson Annikie Lelaka said emergency services were called to a botched circumcision in Mshongoville, while 130 people were taken to hospitals in and around Pretoria.
“After the children were rescued from these illegal schools and sent to different hospitals, some were collected by their parents from the Atteridgville police station,” she said.
Spokesperson for the Gauteng Provincial Initiation Co-ordinating Committee, Kiba Kekana, said police were still investigating the death of the 42-year-old, whose name is known to the Pretoria News but is being withheld while authorities look for his family.
“One hundred and thirty eight initiates were rescued at an initiation school after our committee received reports of the illegal initiation schools operating in the area. One hundred and nineteen of them were from an informal settlement in the area.
“The death of the 42-year-old man took place at the illegally operated initiation school in Atteridgeville informal settlement,” Kekana said.
He said others were rescued from an illegal school in Ekurhuleni.
“Legislature dictates that we must monitor and evaluate the general functioning of initiation schools during the initiation school period. It was during this monitoring process that one 42-year-old man died during an initiation at an illegal initiation school in Tshwane,” Kekana said.
He said nine illegal initiation schools were closed as a result.
Kekana called for the government to pay more attention to initiation processes to curb deaths.
“With the summer initiation season in the planning phase, the committee calls on the relevant departments, law enforcement agencies and traditional leaders to increase both preventative and consequence management efforts to end the unnecessary and preventative carnage of our initiates. Any death is too many. Every effort must therefore be made to ensure the safety of the initiates and to prevent death from becoming normalised.”
Last week, the initiation season drew to a close but claimed lives of initiates across the country.
In Limpopo, three people died. The province’s Co-operative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs MEC Basikopo Makamu said: “With the decrease of the initiation schools, the province equally witnessed a decrease of the total initiates from 79 529 last year to 68 329 this year, while three people died.”
In the Eastern Cape, 17 people died as a result of illegal initiation schools.
Pretoria News