Residents live in fear of pitbulls after kid's death

It was barely five minutes after Nothemba Keke's four-year-old son Milani had jumped from her lap that she heard him screaming. A neighbour's pitbulls were attacking him.

Keke, 49, couldn't find the dogs' owner and could only watch her son being mauled to death.

Last Sunday, a week after the attack in Gugulethu, Cape Town, Milani was buried a day before his fifth birthday. Now Keke wants justice for her son.

"I have always been worried about the increase in the number of people owning vicious dogs in the community," she said.

"You see them walking these dogs everywhere, sometimes they struggle to control them and they look like they will break away from their leashes. I am scared of dogs, and so was Milani."

Keke said her nine-year-old daughter, Khanya, was traumatised. "Khanya came to me screaming. She witnessed the whole incident," she said.

"Milani was playing rugby with a neighbour's child and the ball landed in the yard of one of our neighbours. Milani climbed onto the wall looking for the ball and the dogs grabbed him by the feet and dragged him inside and attacked him.

0 of 2

"I tried to throw myself inside to save him but my neighbour held me back. I went around the neighbourhood asking for help until the owner came ... Apparently he was at the mall."

Keke said the neighbour contributed R10,000 towards the funeral costs. But that is cold comfort to her. "I want justice for my son. I cried when I had to pack away his tiny clothes and his uniform," she said.

"I had enrolled him for grade R and he was excited about starting karate lessons. He was a loving child and would not stop asking about plans for his birthday."

Family friend Sabelo Hlanganisa said there had been an increase in the number of people with vicious dogs.

"People in the community keep these vicious dogs for different reasons. Some keep them for safety. To some it's a business, they breed them for sale. To gangsters, it's a status symbol," he said.

"The government should regulate the breeding of such dogs. The government should consider regulating the acquisition of such animals because we have lost a child today, and tomorrow it will be a neighbour's child."

Western Cape police spokesperson Col André Traut said police were investigating. The owner of the dogs declined to comment. Cape of Good Hope SPCA spokesperson Belinda Abraham said the man's three dogs were in its care.

"Unfortunately we are aware of several incidents that resulted in severe injuries and fatalities," she said. "International correlation studies have identified a very worrying connection between criminal offenders and the choice to own high-risk dog breeds that are considered 'vicious'.

"The study also reveals that these same people have a higher likelihood of being irresponsible or cruel pet owners, and herein lies the problem. With power-breed ownership comes a great deal of responsibility."

Dog fighting is one of the main reasons people own pitbulls, and residents of the Hout Bay township of Hangberg, less than an hour's drive from Gugulethu, said syndicates abandoned the pitbulls once the dogs were injured.

Leonardo Gallant, 42, who owns a pitbull, said: "There are many pitbulls here, they are just walking around. Most people in this community keep this breed for dog fighting. They have a shack up the mountain where they fight the dogs. When the dogs get injured they leave it."

A few blocks from Gallant's home is Lyle Warmer's shack. He keeps five pitbulls in a tiny enclosure below his bedroom window. Instead of responding to our greetings, he asked for dog food. His body is covered in gang signs, and he has the "28s" gang sign on both knees. Warmer denied that he is involved in dog fighting.

"I love my dogs," he said. "I will do anything to protect them."

Port Elizabeth gardener and refuse collector Gerald Cloete's left arm was amputated after three cross-breed pitbull terriers attacked him in the street in 2017. Cloete won a damages claim but the owner of the dogs, Christiaan van Meyeren, took the matter on appeal to avoid paying up to R2.3m in damages. In September, the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.

Another Port Elizabeth man, Ruan Redgard, 27, died after two pitbulls mauled him in 2018.