Junior Mabandla, who was reported missing a month ago, has been found dead.
Exactly a month after Junior Mabandla went missing, police in Mpumalanga have discovered the remains of the 6-year-old boy buried in a grave.
Junior went missing in Pienaar on 3 June after he left the house to buy sweets with friends and never returned home.
Following the gruesome discovery of his remains at a gravesite on Wednesday, an 18-year-old man was arrested in connection with the case.
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He is currently receiving medical treatment under police guard after he was reportedly assaulted by community members, according to Mpumalanga provincial police spokesperson, Colonel Donald Mdhluli.
Mdhluli said community members called the police and linked the suspect to Junior’s disappearance.
He told City Press:
The police were called to a scene in Pienaar where some members of the community had gathered and apprehended a man who related to them that he was somehow involved in the disappearance of two children, a three-year-old girl who was sought by her family on 3 July 2024 as well as Junior [Mabandla] who went missing for exactly a month.
Mdhluli added:
The remains [of the 6-year-old boy] were in a shopping bag together with his clothes. He was buried in someone else’s grave.
He explained that upon the arrival of the police found “the situation was very tense with a large number of people, which made it a bit hard for the men and women in blue to manoeuvre”.
He said: “Eventually, members of the police reached a place where it is believed the little boy could have been buried.”
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“Thereafter members also arrived at the cemetery and then found the said man with some injuries. The man was taken to a medical facility for treatment while police were shown a grave where the remains of Junior were kept.”
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He said that while initially this was a missing person’s case, “a case of murder will now be investigated”.
“We don’t know the motive [of the murder] yet and the alleged suspect who is under police guard still has to be formally charged.”
Mdhluli said besides the discovery of Junior’s remains, police would on Thursday exhume the remains of another child, the 3-year-old girl who went missing on Wednesday.
According to Mdhluli, the girl’s family indicated to police that “they were working with the community to find their child and when they caught him [the alleged suspect] he alluded to the community that he had killed and buried a child in the yard of another family,” he explained.
Mdhluli added:
When they asked him about Junior, he said he would show them where he is was buried.
Staff Reporter
www.news24.com
