A 17-year-old boy from Kenilworth in Lukona Village, located between Nkayi and Nyathi in Matabeleland North, claims that police officers stood by and watched as he was mauled by four police dogs last week.
The teenager, identified as Sabelo Dube, had been sent to a local shop when he found himself in the middle of a police operation to disperse a crowd. The crowd had gathered following reports of a gold discovery at a nearby claim in Kenilworth.
Speaking to CITE with permission from his guardian before being taken to a medical facility, Sabelo recounted how the police allegedly allowed the dogs to attack him.
“As I screamed for help, the officers taunted me, saying, ‘Yekele zikulume mbinjana’ (let them bite you a bit),” he said.
“I was sitting at the shop when the police arrived in their vehicle. I didn’t know what was going on until I saw people running. By the time I started to run, the dogs had already caught up with me and started biting,” Sabelo recalled. “While I was screaming that the dogs were killing me, the officers told me to let them bite me a bit. After being bitten, they wanted me to get into their vehicle, but I refused and hid. They kept searching for me, saying they wanted the dogs to bite me again, but they didn’t find me.”
Sabelo is now in severe pain and struggling to walk.
His uncle, Tanwell Mpofu, who accompanied him, revealed that the police had confiscated the original police report they had initially written.
“When my wife was supposed to take Sabelo to the hospital, they required a police report. The police initially wrote that he was bitten at the mine, even though he was actually at the shops. When my brother, who was also at the clinic, took the report to Inyathi police station for correction, the officers told him to leave it, promising to correct it,” Mpofu explained.
However, when Mpofu returned the following morning to collect the corrected report, the police began making excuses.
“We had to stop at Inyathi police station before coming to Bulawayo. When we called the officer who wrote the report, he said he wasn’t at the station and asked us to come by. But when we arrived, the other officers claimed they couldn’t rewrite it as they didn’t know what was previously written,” Mpofu said.
The family is deeply distressed by the incident. “This is truly painful. We are facing challenges even in getting to the hospital because we don’t have money and are unemployed. We are now borrowing from neighbours to afford the trip to Bulawayo since the clinic back home is too far,” Mpofu added.
Police brutality on record..