Soccer coach rapes 13-year old boy in Khayelitsha

On Sunday 5 May, Fenyang Mgwatyu (all names in this article have been changed), a 13-year old Khayelitsha boy didn’t return home after his regular soccer practice.

“He had missed his 20h00 curfew, when my father instructed our other brother to go look for him. My other brother said that the soccer coach had asked Fenyang to accompany him to his shack to help him look for something,” recalls Fenyang’s older sister, Dikeledi.

When Fenyang’s brother arrived at the coach’s shack, he looked through a hole and witnessed the coach raping his brother. He then called two other boys who were passing by to act as witnesses for what was happening. After a few minutes, he ran back home to call his father and tell him what he saw. Fenyang’s father immediately hurried to the coach’s shack and knocked on his door. When he did not open up, the father proceeded to kick down the door.

He found the coach, known as Fezile, standing inside the shack, but he couldn’t see Fenyang anywhere.

“Our father asked Fezile where Fenyang was, but the coach claimed he had just left,” explains Dikeledi. The two boys, who had witnessed the incident through the hole in the shack, came inside and told the father that the coach had hidden the boy behind the bed.

“Our father remained in control of his anger and demanded that Fezile come with him and explain to Fenyang’s mother what he had done to her child,” Dikeledi said.

“Fenyang was very weak. He couldn’t even walk and he didn’t want to answer us when we asked him what had happened to him. He just kept on crying and crying. It was only after I asked him to take off his pants that we confirmed that Fezile had raped him. His bum was full of his [Fezile’s] sperm,” recalls Dikeledi.

But Fezile denied that he did anything to the boy until a respected member of the community was called, and persuaded him to speak the truth. He eventually confessed to having raped the boy. He claimed that he was possessed by the devil. The family took the boy to the hospital and called the police. Fezile was then arrested and sent to the Harare police station where he slept on Sunday night.

A doctor examined the boy and confirmed that Fenyang had been hurt badly, and gave him a full week’s sick leave from school. He is also scheduled to go to counseling sessions at the local Rape Crisis Centre. Fezile has been charged with rape.

“We usually hear about such things over the radio, but I never thought it would happen to my family,” said an upset Dikeledi.

Dikeledi alleges this is not the first time Fezile has been accused of rape. She said that they recently found out that he had been chased away from his village near Queenstown in the Eastern Cape because he had also raped someone there. She discovered this after the incident through conversations with family friends having close ties to the coach.

“Fenyang spent a lot of time sleeping,” said Dikeledi. He told her that he keeps hearing the words Fezile said to him as he held a knife to his throat while raping him. He claims Fenyang said that he was going to cut his throat and kill him, burn his body, and dump it in the bushes.

The family is doing everything they can to support Fenyang. Dikeledi seems confident that her brother is on the road to recovery. She mentions that she is happy that he has already begun to play again.