About 8am on Sunday, Nthabiseng Maphasika's screams woke the community.
“Help, the dog is biting the child!” she screamed from the middle of the untarred road.
Three-year-old Keketso Saule, who had been playing with a friend in her neighbour's yard, was being attacked by two pit bulls.
Other neighbours emerged from their homes and, with Maphasika, threw stones at the dogs in the hope they would let Keketso go.
“There wasn’t much we could do. The gate was locked and we were also scared,” Maphasika said. Throwing hot water at the dogs also failed.
The owner of the property where the dogs lived was close friends with the Saules and regarded each other as family.
Keketso often visited and was playing there with a friend when the attack happened. The friend was unharmed.
“Nothing stopped the dogs until the child died. We tried to help but nothing could stop them; they only stopped when they were satisfied,” Maphasika said.
By this time, word had spread around Sekoti Mpate, a township in Phomolong, Welkom. A crowd had gathered.
“When the dogs stopped and the child was lifeless, a boy from the crowd pulled the child by the leg and threw him near our gate.”
Angry residents got hold of one of the dogs and stoned it before setting it alight. Charred marks were still visible on Wednesday morning when Sunday Times visits the Saule family.
Yesterday, a white tent and chairs were set up outside the home for mourners and a memorial service before Keketso was buried.
Inside the house, the toddler's mother Malefu Sanna sat on a single bed, clutching at the yellow blanket wrapped around her shoulders. A white candle flickered on the floor in the middle of the room. A small pair of blue Paw Patrol slippers had been placed next to it.
Emotions gripped her as she began to speak. Keketso's grandmother, Nthabeleng Saule, took over. She was the first family member to identify Keketso's tattered body after the attack.
“Seeing his lifeless body, that was hard. We can't sleep, we're not coping at all because of how we lost our child,” she said.
Remembering the toddler brings a bittersweet smile to her face. She described him as a happy but shy boy. “He was always smiling. He liked to hide because he was very shy. He would only speak to us as his family and friends. He liked to play a lot,” she said.
The family were offered counselling by the department of social development who visited on Monday, and the Matjhabeng local municipality has paid for the funeral.
“We will continue with them [counselling sessions] but it’s hard to accept that he’s no more, because of dogs. It’s the kind of pain we’ll never get over,” Saule said.
The owner of the dogs, Lebohang Pali, 30, was taken to a place of safety on Sunday. His surviving dog was euthanised the same day of the attack by the SPCA.
Pali has been charged with culpable homicide and offences related to the Animals Amendments Actand released on R300 bail. He has not returned to his home.
The attack happened 177km away and eight days after another attack in which Olebogeng Mosime, 8, was mauled to death by a neighbour's pit bull on November 12 in the Free State. He was playing outside when the dog jumped a fence and attacked him.
And in the third related death in two weeks, 15-month-old Reuben le Roux died in hospital on Wednesday after being attacked by a pit bull in East London.
The child was playing with the neighbours' dog when it attacked him in the Gonubie Farm area.
The owner of the dog, Noleen Fourie, desperately tried to free little Reuben after the pit bull, Whisky, had lunged for the baby’s throat, dragging him 3m across her yard.
The three cases have sparked an increase in calls for the banning of the dogs.
A petition by the Sizwe Kupelo Foundation to ban the breed as a domestic animal this week received more than 120,000 signatures before the news broke of the attack on Reuben.
Several civil and political organisations including the EFF, Cosatu and the ANC Youth League are backing the proposal.
The NSPCA said it was offering an emergency service to collect aggressive dogs from owners who could no longer keep them. Posters and social media posts calling for dogs to be surrendered have been circulating, with threats that dogs not surrendered within seven days will be killed.
The SPCA is offering an emergency service for people who cannot take care of their dogs or see them as a threat to society to surrender them.
The Pando Tladi branch of the ANCYL in the Free State released a poster calling for communities to “find creative ways of eliminating these dogs”.
The regional superstructure is disciplining the branch for spreading misinformation and inciting violence.
Saule said she supported the petition to ban the breed as a domestic animal.
“Enough is enough. We don’t want to lose more children. We must do everything possible to remove them from society to save our children’s lives.”
Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission is investigating a racist voice recording on a Whatsapp group in which a woman defends pit bulls and calls instead for a ban on black people.
Ban them, kill them, shoot them, get rid of them because they are the problem — not pit bulls, not animals…… God created those animals. Who created the black man? Do you think God? I don't think so.
The woman, Belinda Migor, later blamed diabetes for her outburst. She told TimesLive her sugar was "out of whack", and she could not think clearly.
The manager of the SPCA’s special investigations unit, Nazareth Appalsamy, said resources are being stretched as many dogs were being surrendered around the country.
“People are panicking. We are asking the national and provincial governments what they have done because we do not enforce the protection of people, though we sympathise with those who have been attacked and lost their lives. However, we can only enforce what we’ve been mandated to do and that is to protect animals.”
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