Pit bull owner charged with culpable homicide in South Africa

Rare criminal case filed after six fatal pit bull attacks in 45 days

SENWABARWANA, South Africa––Walking to work at about 5:00 a.m.,  two days before Christmas,  Melitta Sekole,  43,  of Senwabarwana,  Limpopo state,  South Africa,  was on a heavily traveled footpath through Ga-Makgato village,  heading toward Vivo village,  ten miles away,  when two pit bulls “ripped off her clothes and bit her severely,”  provincial police spokesperson Colonel Malesela Ledwaba told News24.

“She was rescued by community members and taken to hospital in a critical condition,” Ledwaba said.

“She was in so much pain”

“When I got to the scene,”  family member Pleasure Makhura said,  “I found her on the ground,  naked.

“The dogs had ripped off her clothes and she was in so much pain.  I found the ambulance staff helping her,  alongside the owner of the dogs.

“It hurts us that he has not come to the family,”  Makhura mentioned,  “while he has been visiting her in the hospital.  We don’t know what we are going to do.  She has three school-age children.”

Pit bull owner charged after demonstration

Melitta Sekole,  a single mother,  was taken first to the Ga-Makgato village clinic.  She was later transferred to the Pietersburg Provincial Hospital in Polokwane,  about 30 miles south,  where she died from her injuries on December 27,  2022.

Limpopo police arrested the pit bulls’ owner,  Nchabeleng Charles Masebe,  either 62 or 67,  according to conflicting reports,  after her death––and after family and friends of Melitta Sekole marched to the Senwabarwana police station,  staging a televised demonstration to demand that Masebe be criminally charged.

Charges followed

Masebe is now charged with culpable homicide.

Lebohang Pali,  23,  was by contrast charged only with three counts of violating animal control legislation in November 2022,  after his pit bull killed three-year-old Keketso Innocent Saule on November 20,  2022 in Hennenman.  The owners of pit bulls who killed five other South Africans in 2022 have apparently not been charged at all.

(See Baby is 3rd South African killed by pit bull in 9 days; calls for ban rise.)

Ga-Makgato resident Thuso Phala told SABC News that the same two pit bulls who killed Melitta Sekole had attacked workers at Masebe’s tree farm just the day before.

74 of 101 dogs involved in South African fatalities since 2004 have been pit bulls

The death of Melitta Sekole,  the sixth South African pit bull fatality in 45 days,  reinvigorated the three-month Sizwe Kupelo Foundation campaign for a national ban on pit bulls,  begun after the September 26,  2022 pit bull mauling death of 10-year-old Storm Nuku in Gqerberha,  Cape Province.

Nuku’s death was followed by those of eight-year-old Olebogeng Mosime on November 12,  2022 in Bloemfontein,  three-year-old Keketso Innocent Saule on November 20,  2022 in Hennenman,  fifteen-month-old Reuben le Roux on November 23,  2022 in East London,  37-year-old Zimkhitha Brenda Gaga on November 27,  2022 in Port Alfred,  and 39-year-old Floyd Metsileng,  39,  on December 3,  2022.

Altogether,  of 101 dogs involved in fatal attacks in South Africa since 2004,  74 have been pit bulls.

(See South African dog attack deaths, 2004-present.)

138,000 sign petition for pit bull ban

Firefighter Sizwe Kupelo in December 2022 electronically transmitted a petition bearing 138,000 signatures favoring a pit bull ban to Department of Agriculture,  Land Reform & Rural Development minister Thoko Didiza,  after Didiza refused to meet with him in person.

The petition was endorsed by the Congress of South African Trade Unions [COSATU],  the largest labor federation in the nation,  and by the Economic Freedom Fighters political party [EFF],  founded by former African National Congress Youth League president Julius Malem,  but has not drawn any official response from the ruling African National Congress.

African National Congress party president and South African national president Cyril Ramaphosa,  a game farmer,  in mid-December 2022 survived a long-running corruption scandal and a challenge to his leadership.

(See Alleged game farm money-laundering may oust South African president.)

“Sue them,”  says Sizwe Kupelo

While the Ramaphosa government stonewalls,  mobs killed the pit bulls believed to have inflicted the Mosime and Saule fatalities.

Kupelo,  however,  has denounced the mob attacks,  instead urging survivors of pit bull maulings and the families of pit bull victims to become legally and politically active.

“Though it won’t bring back their loved ones,”  Kupelo said in a written statement after Melitta Sekole died,  “we encourage families of the victims and survivors of pit bull attacks to file civil lawsuits against dog owners.”

Melitta Sekole may have been the last pit bull fatality of 2022,  a year that saw record numbers of deaths inflicted by pit bulls in at least six nations:  the U.S.,  United Kingdom,  Australia,  South Africa,  Canada,  and Ireland.

As reports of fatal and disfiguring pit bull attacks are still arriving,  ANIMALS 24-7 will wait a few more days before publishing a final roster of the victims.

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