‘The pain is unbearable’ - dad whose sons died in car

An unemployed Bloemfontein father does not know how he will pay for the funerals of his two young sons, who died after getting locked in a broken car. 

"The pain is unbearable. We don’t know what to do in this situation. We are deeply hurt and troubled," Tebogo Tau said from his Botshabelo home on Wednesday. 

Amelia Moshoeshoe and Tebogo Tau, who lost their boys on Sunday afternoon after suffocating inside a broken car.

His sons, Lebo, 6, and Thapelo, 7, died of heatstroke after they and two friends got trapped in a broken car parked in a mechanic’s yard on Sunday afternoon. They were unable to get out, as the car could only be opened from the outside.

The mechanic was not home at the time. Residents got the children out. The brothers died on the scene and were taken to a state mortuary. The other two were taken to hospital.


At the time, Tau was away playing soccer, and his wife Amelia Moshoeshoe had gone to church.
"I am unemployed, and I don’t know what I am going to do to bury my boys and we don't know who will help us in this situation," he said.

Moshoeshoe sat on a chair alongside Tau, her eyes filled with tears. She battled to speak. On January 19, cousins Bayanda Sithole and Asiphile Sithole, both aged three, died of heatstroke in a red Toyota Corolla parked in the sun in a mechanic's yard in Clermont, west of Durban. Ayabongwa Sithole and Phiwokuhle Mtshali, both two, were also in the car and were admitted to hospital in a critical condition.

On the same day, five cousins, aged between three and seven, were found dead in an unused freezer at their grandmother's home in Kakamas, Northern Cape. They suffocated after the freezer locked itself while they were playing in it.