PUDEMO MAN KILLS HIMSELF HOURS BEFORE JOB INTERVIEW

MBABANE – A 31-year-old member of PUDEMO and UNESWA graduate, walked over four kilometres to the Lubombo Mountains and allegedly committed suicide.

The acronym for PUDEMO is the People’s United Democratic Movement, while UNESWA stands for University of Eswatini. Relatives and friends had  been looking for Bongumenzi Matsebula after he mysteriously left his homestead in the early hours of Tuesday morning. His death has left the community of Ndzevane with more questions than answers.

According to Ngabisa, the deceased’s sister, Bongumenzi  left  just before 5am on Tuesday and did not tell anyone.
“We thought he had travelled to the Eswatini Water and Agricultural Development Enterprise’s (ESWADE) site offices where he had told us the previous day that he had been called for an interview. We didn’t panic in the morning but our minds started racing when we began receiving calls from his friends and colleagues who told us that he was not among them during the interviews,” said Ngabisa.

The sister went on to state that the situation was made worse when they eventually received a call from an ESWADE officer enquiring on the whereabouts of the deceased. “We began looking around the community and calling people whom we knew were his friends but the search was unsuccessful. We tried to call the Lubulini police but they asked that we should at least send a family member to file a missing person’s report as they couldn’t drive to Ndzevane due to the  muddy slippery  roads caused by the ongoing rains,” narrated Ngabisa.

Search

The deceased’s sister said the search party rested for the day with the hope that the deceased will show up at home as he was known as a person who didn’t just leave home without a valid reason, let alone not  inform anyone from the family. We waited until the following morning and his friends and community members intensified the search for the deceased along the community surroundings,” Ngabisa said. When asked if the family had sent someone to file a missing person’s report as requested by the police, she  said they didn’t have time as looking for the deceased’s whereabouts was their priority.

Grisly

The following day, which was Thursday, at around 6pm, some young boys who had been herding cattle and goats near the Lubombo Mountains came running and screaming inyandzaleyo! She said the young boys narrated that they had seen a dead body in the woods, “We quickly alerted the search party which was led by Indvuna Samuel Vilane who then travelled over four kilometres to the mountains.

It is there where we found my brother’s lifeless body hanging in a tree,” said a sombre Ngabisa. She said they were  shocked to discover that the rope that he allegedly used to hang himself was the one the family was using domestically when tying down goats.

Deceased’s

The sister disclosed to this publication that the Lubulini police came after they were alerted of the finding and when they arrived they took pictures and further transported the deceased’s body to the Santa Lucia mortuary, at the Riverside in Big Bend. Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati, yesterday confirmed that indeed a 31-year-old man of Ndzevane was found dead, hanging in a tree. “Police are investigating what is a  suspected suicide case at the moment,” Vilakati said. Furthermore, according to Ngabisa, they were still shocked at the turn of events and were  without words to describe what had befell the family.

Unemployed

“My brother was supposed to attend an interview at the ESWADE site for the pump operator positions, which were made available by the government parastatal as an empowerment to the unemployed youth in the community of Ndzevane, but now he has been found dead hanging in a tree and we are confused,” she pointed out. Ngabisa also disclosed that the deceased had been in training for four weeks at ESWADE site and was informed that on February 7 was the day for their interviews.

According to the deceased’s sister, her late brother was among the 22 youth in the area that had been selected by ESWADE for  the training. “My brother had been excitedly  reminding us at home that on February 7 would be the day he finally got his much awaited job as a pump operator,” said Ngabisa.

Disclosed

She disclosed that her late brother had been on a long  journey to secure a job he would be able to help his family with.  He  graduated at the University of Eswatini, Kwaluseni Campus in 2013 and excelled in the Humanities Bachelor’s Degree. “He had been looking for a teaching job for all this years but without any success and in 2019 he was briefly employed as a temporal teacher at one of the schools in Mankayane called Magojela Secondary. The contract job was too brief and he had to return home,” opined Ngabisa. She pointed out that she was still shocked as her brother was excited on that Monday before his disappearance on Tuesday.

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