Six-year-old the latest pupil rescued from pit toilet at Eastern Cape school

Eight staff members and 135 pupils are sharing two broken pit toilets at Mampondo Primary School in Sicwenza location, outside Flagstaff in the Eastern Cape.

School governing board (SGB) members say an eight-year-old boy in June and a six-year-old in August had to be rescued after they fell into the toilets.

The school has 12 pit toilets but only two are usable, although they are broken. SGB chairperson Siyabonga Ndlala said they are the same toilets he used as a pupil at the school in the early 1990s.

Ndlala said: “We have tried every way possible and we are tired now.”

He volunteers to guard pupils whenever they need to use the toilets, but he was not there on the day the six-year-old fell.

“Luckily, kids were clever enough to quickly call the school principal while others were saving him. I have three grandchildren who are attending this school and we live in fear.” He said there are bushes near the school but it would be dangerous for the children to use them. “They have no choice but to use these toilets,” he said.

Mampondo is among the oldest primary schools in Flagstaff. The toilets are without doors; seats are loose or broken; the collapsing roofing is full of holes and held down by rocks, which also poses a danger to the children.

Asiphe Gxabhu, the mother of the rescued six-year-old, said her child is still traumatised. He told her he fell when wrestling with some older kids.

“I think it also helped that the toilet was full. Other parents managed to rush to the school and they cleaned him,” Gxabhu said.

“I wish the government could build toilets for the school… I think what traumatises him most is having to use the same toilets. Those toilets are a disaster waiting to happen.”

One of the two usable pit toilets at the school. (Photo: Yamkela Ntshongwana)