The woman wrongly suspected of being a sangoma, and who was arrested and later cleared of the kidnapping of Joshlin Smith, has broken her silence, claiming police tortured her for hours.
Phumza Sigaqa spoke to the Daily Voice on Monday as police revealed they had arrested one more person in connection with the disappearance of the Saldanha Bay girl.
Police spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Malcolm Pojie, confirms: “Be advised that a 32-year-old woman will appear in the Vredenburg Magistrate’s Court today in connection with the disappearance of six-year-old Joshlin Smith.”
No further details were given.Sigaqa was arrested on 5 March along with her neighbour, Joshlin’s mother Racquel “Kelly”, her berk Jacquen Appollis and their friend Steveno van Rhyn, and charged with human trafficking and kidnapping.
The State dropped all charges against Phumza due to a lack of evidence.
Today marks a month since Joshlin went missing from her Diazville home.
One of the accused allegedly told police that they had sold Joshlin to a sangoma for R20 000.
Sigaqa, who was detained at Langebaan Police Station for nearly a week, was accused of being a sangoma, a claim which she, her family members and black Diazville residents have rejected.
Speaking from a relative’s home, Sigaqa told the Daily Voice that she still fears for her life.
Sigaqa says: “I was accused of being a sangoma and I have never been one. I still don’t understand why the police arrested me in this case.
“I don’t feel good, I suffered at the hands of the police. I have had to leave everything I have because I fear for my safety. I have been released from jail, but I still don’t feel like a free woman. I am still very much in prison.”
The Middelpos woman says cops barged into her home one night, waking up her kids as they ransacked her place looking for Joshlin.
She says: “They took us around 2am to the police station, where I was assaulted by two female officers and a male. They put a plastic bag over my head and then kept pouring water in my face. They wanted to plug some machine in, but they said it would kill me.”
She said after some time, the police called Appollis and Van Rhyn into the interrogation room.
Sigaqa says: “The first one in was Boeta [Appollis]. He said they gave the child to me, and the second one echoed him.
“That is a bald-faced lie. I was at home when I saw Kelly, Boeta and Joshlin. They had a gas tank, they walked past, Kelly greeted me. That was before 4pm that Monday.
“When they came back, they didn’t have the child with them.”
She says her arrest has caused a racial divide in the community.
Sigaqa says: “Why I’m avoiding going back to Saldanha Bay is because some coloured people in the area are so misinformed that they believe I am a sangoma. I’m not so concerned about the black people because they supported me at court because they know the truth about me.”
Sigaqa says she only knows Kelly as someone who sells second-hand clothing: “I am not her friend and never was.”
The mother says her children are still traumatised and have been taken out of school.
Sigaqa says: “I now have to decide whether they are going back to school in the same area or not.
“I have lived in that place since 2017, my life was peaceful until this happened.”
mandilakhe.tshwete@inl.co.za