The office of the Executive Mayor in OR Tambo District has up to so far confirmed the death of four young initiates during 2025, Winter Season. According to the reports two initiates died in Ngqeleni, one in Qumbu and one in Lusikisiki.
This happened despites numerous initiatives in the weeks before the season began, in an attempt to stop the deaths in the initiation schools across the province. The district launched over 50 targeted awareness campaigns across the district, bringing together health professionals, legal experts, traditional leaders, and communities.
OR Tambo Meya Mesuli Ngqondwana, stressed that they did everything within their power to prevent this very pain and yet, four lives were still lost. “That is four too many, and it is unacceptable. We are not standing still, a crisis meeting has been urgently convened –uniting the Deputy minister of Traditional Affairs, His Majesty King Ndamase Ndamse and local leadership to confront the crisis head-on. He called on traditional leaders and traditional practitioners to place life before custom. “We call on communities to break the silence and protect our youth. Because tradition should never be paid for in blood, these boys were not statistics, they were our future. And we owe it to them and to every child still alive, to act like it”, concluded Ngqondwana.
Meanwhile, immediate interventions now underway include: Emergency inspections of all legal initiation schools, full compliance audits in line with the Customary Initiation Act, joint enforcement operations with COGTA, SAPS, Health, Social Development, and the NPA.
