Tholeni, the Eastern Cape’s ‘village of death’, gets a much-needed infusion of hope

Gift of the Givers founder Dr Imtiaz Sooliman (right) receives a Jojo tank for the Tholeni village garden. (Photo: Gift of the Givers)

By Estelle Ellis

18 Aug 2024

After a mother killed her children and herself because they were starving, the government and Gift of the Givers stepped in and started feeding schemes that have changed the face of Tholeni.

On a Sunday morning in August 2023, a debt collector looking for repayment of a loan found the bodies of Bongeka Buso (38), Orabile Buso (8), Oratile Buso (5) and Anathi Buso (14).

The police said Bongeka was found hanging from a rope in her rondavel. Orabile and Oratile were found dead on the bed. It is alleged that Bongeka took the last of the family’s food and mixed it with Rattex to poison her smaller children.

Her other child, Anathi, understood to be about 14 years old, was found lying on the floor next to the bed with a knife in her neck.

Residents said it looked as if she’d been trying to stop her mother from poisoning the two small children, and there had been a physical altercation. Family members said Bongeka was deeply in debt and she and her children had been starving for weeks.

In a suicide note, the mother, known in the area as a quiet introvert, said she had become overwhelmed by her burdens.

Read more: Desperate Eastern Cape mom kills starving children and hangs herself

Read more: Butterworth mom desperately cried for help before family murders, suicide – Social Development MEC

In March 2022, Daily Maverick highlighted the cost-of-living crisis, especially in the rural Eastern Cape, after seven children died of severe acute malnutrition in the district. In October that year, the founder of Gift of the Givers, Dr Imtiaz Sooliman, said it had become normal to starve in the Eastern Cape. He warned of an impending malnutrition crisis in the country.

The situation in the province had become progressively worse.

Tholeni Corene Conradie from Gift of the Givers hands out peanut butter in Tholeni. (Photo: Gift of the Givers)

By November 2023, the South African Human Rights Commission, after an inquiry into hunger in the province, said premier Oscar Mabuyane must declare a provincial state of disaster with regard to hunger.

At the time, the minister of health said the incidence of severe acute malnutrition for children in the Eastern Cape was 2.7 per 1,000 children. That is close to four times the figure in 2018/19.

According to the minister, severe acute malnutrition cases in the province have increased by 287.7% over five years, a higher rate than anywhere else in the country.

Even before the tragic deaths of the Buso family, Tholeni village was already known as the “village of death”.

Between May 2007 and August 2012, a serial killer named Bulelani Mabhayi killed 10 women and 9 children in Tholeni. His oldest victim was 79 and the youngest 14 months. He became known as the “monster of Tholeni”. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

After the Buso family tragedy, Gift of the Givers started a programme in the village that is now changing it from being characterised by death to a village of hope.

The Buso family was not the only one struggling.

Tholeni Gift of the Givers members receive a JoJo tank for the Tholeni village garden. (Photo: Gift of the Givers)

Gift of the Givers project manager Corene Conradie said that when the programme started an 18-year-old teenager approached the organisation, saying that he and his brothers had been living on samp alone for two months. But it was finished and they did not have any food in the house.

Their parents had died. They had had nothing to eat for three days.

Since then, Conradie said, a continuing nutritional programme has been at the two schools that were also attended by the Buso children. Children get 1kg of peanut butter each to boost their nutrition. The organisation also started to support the Department of Social Development’s feeding centre.

We have many people who will work in the garden for their daily meals, but we need water to make it sustainable.

“The department only had a budget to help 120 people, and we estimated that the village had 400 households that needed help,” said Conradie. “So we are boosting them so more people can be assisted.”

Gift of the Givers is also specifically helping child-headed households. When its programme started, Conradie recalled, people wouldn’t ask for food. They would ask for work.

“Everyone in Tholeni is so eager to work on the community garden. When they see our trucks come, they put on their overalls, thinking that maybe today is the day that we can start.”

But they have to wait for a borehole because there is no accessible water in the village. People walk for kilometres to collect water in buckets.

Read more: Shared gumboots, paint buckets and a long walk — how Eastern Cape women collect water

The Department of Social Development donated the land for the garden and Cape Agri donated seedlings to the value of R250,000.

Conradie said the organisation was hoping to obtain funding now for a borehole. “We already have many people who will work in the garden for their daily meals, but we need water to make it sustainable,” she said. “I am really praying that this funding comes through.”

Gift of the Givers is working closely with the departments of health, social development and agriculture.

“We have found that there are a lot of child-headed households in the village and the HIV cases are on the increase, so we are helping there too,” she said.

Moms with nothing walk far with babies on their back. They are always smiling, even if they are hungry.

When Gift of the Givers started the intervention shortly after the Buso family tragedy, Conradie said, it was found that there were several families who were in dire trouble.

“When we visited the school, we saw so many children with stunted growth, foetal alcohol syndrome and children deeply affected by hunger and poverty. There was no performance. Children just came to school and then left again.”

She said mothers from a nearby village have now also asked for help, and Gift of the Givers is planning on opening two other nutritional support centres – on the other side of Tholeni and in a neighbouring village.

“My heart broke many times in the past year. A mom came to me and said, ‘I would rather die than have to live with my children going hungry’. These moms walk for kilometres to see if they can’t get porridge for the children at the clinic, but the clinic doesn’t always have it. Sometimes they walk three times a week just hoping that there will be something.

“I can honestly say that making more food available to families has changed the face of this community. There is so much hope there now. We engage with the people. They are such beautiful souls. Moms with nothing walk far with babies on their back. They are always smiling, even if they are hungry.”

She said working with the government stakeholders and engaging with communities on what would work for them had helped a lot.

Read more: Gift of the Givers starts food programme in Butterworth village where desperate mom killed herself and her children

Dr Eileen Carter from the South African Human Rights Commission said the commission has noted that several steps have been taken to address the issues highlighted in the commission’s malnutrition report.

“The [commission] is following up on each and every finding made. We have engaged with most stakeholders and are encouraged by the various interventions under way,” Carter said.

“While we are excited about the progress made, our focus now shifts to ensuring that formal commitments are translated into tangible actions that bring relief to those affected by hunger and malnutrition.

“We welcome initiatives like Gift of the Givers’ intervention in Tholeni village, which has brought hope and positive change to the community. We will continue to monitor progress and advocate for sustained efforts to address this critical human rights issue.”

The departments of social development and health were contacted, but had not commented by the time of publication. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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