On Christmas Day 8-year-old Avuyile Nkovu was going to get the new set of clothes his adoptive mother had bought for him. Instead, three days before Christmas, his aunt and guardian Phumla Nkovu was returning them to the shop.
On Christmas Day 8-year-old Avuyile Nkovu was going to get the new set of clothes his adoptive mother had bought for him. Instead, three days before Christmas, his aunt and guardian Phumla Nkovu was returning them to the shop.
Phumla was distraught when she spoke to Grocott’s Mail on Tuesday 23 December. She had just returned the brand-new outfit they’d bought for him to wear on Christmas Day.
Phumla adopted her nephew after her sister died last year.
It was Avuyile’s clothes that brought home his death to Phumla late on Monday 22 December.
When the police came with Avuyile’s clothes around 10pm that night, Phumla recognised them instantly and passed out from the shock.
"When I went to work I had expected to come back and find him home,” Phumla told Grocott’s Mail.
“But he wasn’t.”
Grocott’s Mail reported last week that Avuyile had gone missing on Saturday. He was last seen by his brother playing with friends in E Street, Fingo Village, Grahamstown.
The friends told police Avuyile had left, saying he would walk back home to D Street.
“The police came around 10pm with his clothes,” Phumla said.
“Next thing I woke up at the hospital".
The Nkovu family are not sure when they will bury their child, whose body is still with the police pending a medical report.
Police spokesperson Captain Milanda Coetzer said the SAPS K9 unit had found the child’s body in a pond in the Matthews Street early on the evening of Monday 22 December.
Coetzer said it had been confirmed the body was Avuyile’s and his family had been notified.
Coetzer, who is SAPS Grahamstown’s Crime Intelligence Officer, said earlier this week it was presumed that Avuyile had drowned in the pond, and that a medical report would confirm the cause of his death.
She said police had searched all the dams in and around the city.
“Our units started searching on Saturday night when the boy was reported missing. They continued on Sunday and Monday.
“We know the children like to go and swim in the dams when the weather gets hot,” she said. “So we searched them all – Belmont Valley, even Grey Dam.”
She said police had not previously considered the Matthews Street pond to be a hazard.
