The body of a Gugulethu toddler has been recovered, almost 12 hours after he went missing on Strand Beach.
|||The body of a Gugulethu toddler was recovered early on Sunday morning almost 12 hours after he went missing on Strand beach.
“They were at the car getting ready to go home when they realised Abukwe wasn’t with them,” a family spokesman said on Sunday after learning four-year-old Abukwe Timbela’s body had been found at the beach.
Stanley Timbela spoke to the Cape Times on Sunday as relatives and friends began arrangements for a prayer service for the little boy.
He said Abukwe’s mother and grandmother were too distraught to be interviewed.
Timbela said: “My sister was with her daughter and a few of the little ones in the family. They were at the beach when they couldn’t find him.
“His grandmother ran back to the beach and started asking people if they saw a little boy. She told police he was missing and they started looking for him.”
Timbela said he rushed to Strand when he heard the boy was missing.
“When I got there, law enforcement was still looking for him until dark.”
At 4am yesterday his phone rang and he was asked to go to the police station.
“But I refused and told them to tell me what happened. He said they think the child had drowned and they found his body on the beach.
“It’s very hard for the family because he was a lovely boy. We always used to tease him a lot because he looked like Julius Malema to us,” said Timbela.
“When I told his mother this morning, she thought I was joking, but then she just started crying. She is still very traumatised,” he said.
Timbela said the family would make funeral arrangements after little Abukwe’s body has been identified on Monday.
City of Cape Town Disaster Risk Management spokesman, Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said Timbela was reported missing at 9.15pm on Saturday.
“The city’s law enforcement and specialised services, together with the police, began a search for the child.
“The body of the four-year-old boy washed up on the shore at Strand Beach at 3.30am,” he said.
Police spokesman Andre Traut said an inquest docket had been opened.
“We will wait until an autopsy is done to determine the cause of death, but it is too soon to say whether the matter will be investigated further,” said Traut. - Cape Times
E-mail Barbara: barbara.maregele@inl.co.za
