mrselfdestrukt's Journal: News Flash: Give us the money we know you have.

'Give us the money we know you have'
13/01/2006 10:31 - (SA)

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Bheki Mbanjwa, The Witness

"Bitches with cars are loaded, you will die if you don't give us the money we know you have."

These were chilling words from hijackers' that continue to haunt Witness reporter Sne Makhanya and her friend, Sthe Ndlovu, who are lucky to be alive after being hijacked at gunpoint, abducted then forced to strip naked before being dumped in an unknown place on Tuesday.

Makhanya, who had left her car at home on the day, was picked up by Ndlovu at The Witness office premises in Durban. The whole ordeal began just before 21:00 when the two arrived at Makhanya's home in Umlazi.

"As we stopped the car, three armed gunmen just appeared out of nowhere, hijacked us in front of my mother who was helplessly looking," she said.

The hijackers then drove away with both Makhanya and Ndlovu. Makhanya said the men became violent in the car and assaulted both of them. "They continuously hit us with guns asking for cellphones, jewellery, bank cards, money and when we told them we didn't have much and gave them what we had, they got angry they didn't believe we didn't have more than we had."

They then drove out of the Umlazi area into a dark, deserted, paved, winding road that could be a short cut route to Lamontville township.

"When we arrived at the end of the road, they ordered us to take off our clothes until we were completely naked and ordered us to run into the bushes while they fired shots in the air. We ran for dear life, took completely different directions but, we heard the car drive off and went back to where the car had stopped," she said.

Naked and weeping in the rain, the two women walked "a long distance" until they came to a house and asked for old clothes from a man who gave them pieces of cloth.

"We then walked about 11km to get to the nearest petrol filling station where they helped us make phonecalls."

Makhanya said that co-operating with the hijackers and keeping silent are the two things that spared their lives from the hijackers.

"There were times when it was just quiet in the car and they would ask if we want to die and would answer, no."

Hijacking, according to provincial police spokesperson Director Bala Naidoo, is the least prominent crime in KwaZulu-Natal but "it carries the worst consequences physically and emotionally. There's just too much trauma involved".

Makhanya said she was still traumatised by the whole incident.

"I'm still having difficulty shutting my eyes because I can't stop playing the ordeal over again in my mind. I wouldn't wish something like this for anybody, not even a worst enemy." Her friend is said to be "angry at the way it happened".

The car, an Opel Corsa fitted with a tracking device, was recovered abandoned just outside Umlazi within about 40 minutes from the time of the call to a car tracking company. No suspects have been arrested in connection with the incident.