Year in review: Spaza shops, foodborne illnesses, mass shootings & extortion

EWN looks back at the year that was 2024 and some of the major crime stories and other related stories that made the headlines.

SPAZA SHOPS, FOODBORNE ILLNESSES & PESTICIDES

In the fourth quarter of 2024, South Africa witnessed a spike in reported foodborne illnesses and deaths.

The deaths often happened after the victims ate snacks bought from spaza shops and street vendors.

More than 20 children died before President Cyril Ramaphosa announced measures to prevent further deaths.

In a televised national address in mid-November, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that more than 890 reported incidents of foodborne illnesses had been reported across all provinces since September. He pinpointed Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal as the most affected provinces.

He explained that the incident in Naledi, Soweto, where six children died could be directly attributed to the pesticide, Terbufos. He said that traces of the pesticide were found on a chips packet on one of the children and that subsequent testing in the area found traces of the pesticide at three spaza shops.

He further said that inspections of spaza shops found that food was stored alongside pesticides and detergents and that the spaza shops lacked proper safe food storage and handling - which increased the risk of contamination.

As a result, the Cabinet resolved to get the dangerous pesticides off the streets and decided that the spaza shops implicated in the deaths of children must be closed and that all spaza shops and other food handling facilities must be registered.

Non-compliant businesses, the president said, would be shut down.

The initial deadline for registrations was 17 December but the government extended this to the end of February.

LUSIKISIKI MASSACRE

On the final Saturday of September, South Africans were shocked to learn of a mass shooting in Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape.

Seventeen people were killed when gunmen opened fire on the homes of three families.

In the first incident, 13 people were murdered in one house, and another four were killed in the second home. It is believed that the attacks occurred while the families were preparing for a cleansing ceremony of family members killed last year. 

An 18th person died in hospital.

Within a month, police arrested seven men, including a prisoner, believed to be the mastermind behind the killings.

The trial is set to start in February 2025 and the families of the 18 victims are hoping to learn why they were targeted.

JOSHLIN SMITH'S DISAPPEARANCE

In February, six-year-old Joshlin Smith went missing from her Middlepos home in Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape.

Her mother, Kelly Smith, reported her missing after she returned home from work. The little girl had been in the care of her mother's boyfriend when she went missing.

Following numerous searches in the area, Joshlin's mother, her boyfriend, Jacquen Appollis and two other people were arrested and charged with human trafficking and kidnapping.

Charges against one of the accused were dropped but subsequently, a fifth person was arrested in connection with Joshlin's disappearance. The charges against Lourentia Lombaard though were also dropped.

In subsequent court appearances, the court heard that Kelly Smith planned to sell Joshlin and her two other children, an eleven-year-old son and her two-year-old daughter, in August of 2023.

The State claims that on 18 February, Smith allegedly took Joshlin to an unknown woman in a white car, where she received a package. Smith and the co-accused then allegedly discussed sharing the money before Smith took Joshlin to meet the same woman on the day she went missing. 

While the case has been transferred to the Western Cape High Court, with pre-trial set to begin on 31 January, Joshlin Smith is still missing, more than eleven months after disappearing.

LIMPOPO PIGSTY MURDERS

In October, three men appeared in court for shooting dead two people and then feeding their remains to pigs on a farm in Limpopo.

The three men, farm owner Zachariah Olivier and his two employees, Adriaan de Wet and William Musora, are accused of shooting dead Mariah Makgato and Kudzai Ndlovu and then dumping their bodies in a pigsty on Olivier's farm, just outside Polokwane.

Makgato and Ndlovu allegedly trespassed on Olivier's farm, searching for food, when they were shot and killed. A third person, Ndlovu's partner, Mabutho Ncube, was also shot but survived.

Community members found the Makgato and Ndlovu's decomposing remains in a pigsty in August. The accused were arrested in the same month.

The case is continuing.

GEORGE BUILDING COLLAPSE

On 6 May 2024, South Africans watched as anxiously as rescuers leaped into action after a five-storey building under construction collapsed in George, in the Western Cape.

Dozens of artisans were on site when the building came down, burying them under tonnes of rubble. Twenty-two artisans were rescued in the first few hours after the collapse.

An eleven-day rescue operation followed as disaster management raced to pull survivors from the collapsed building.

There were a number of miraculous escapes, as some artisans survived for days without food and water.

Eventually, all 62 artisans were accounted for, with 34 of them found dead.

More than seven months after the tragedy, investigations are still underway into the cause of the collapse.

The structural engineer who signed off on the plans for the building, Atholl Mitchell, has been suspended by the engineering council.

Investigators say it will take at least 12 months to conclude their work.

AKA MURDER

Almost two years after the murders of rapper Kiernan "AKA" Forbes and his friend Tebello "Tibz" Motsoane in Durban, the trial against the seven suspects is ready to begin.

Police made the breakthrough arrests in March 2024, just over a year after the duo were shot and killed at a restaurant in Florida Road in Durban.

In bail proceedings, the court heard that the hit on AKA was well planned, with each of the seven having a role in the murder.

While two of the accused are in Eswatini and with extradition efforts ongoing, the trial is set to start in February 2025.

EXTORTION

South Africa has seen an alarming spike in incidents of extortion in 2024.

The extortion has been linked to syndicates operating in the construction, taxi and protection industries.

Police intervention has often led to deadly shoot-outs with suspects and while authorities have bemoaned that most incidents of extortion are not reported, there have been accusations in certain provinces that the police are in cahoots with the extortionists.

The Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal appear to be hot beds for extortion syndicates, with a number of incidents reported in these provinces.

In an attempt to combat extortion, the SAPS opened a hotline for citizens to report extortion.