Peter Luhanga
Kobe says the suspect is a troubled youth she rescued from the streets and raised since 2017. Photo: Peter Luhanga
- Dunoon pastor says she raised the youth for nearly a decade after rescuing him from the streets.
- Family trapped inside as flames engulf the home.
- Academic certificates, laptops, and important documents destroyed.
A pastor who took in a troubled youth from the streets and tried to help him rebuild his life was left shattered last Monday after her Dunoon house was petrol-bombed on Monday last week.
It is believed the culprit is the young man she tried to help, who acted together with a group of his friends.
The youth, now 22-years-old, who had battled drug addiction since childhood, had been raised by the pastor for years as she fought to formally adopt him and put him through schools in both the Eastern Cape and Cape Town before the relationship spiralled into chaos.
Nosipho Kobe, 44, a mother of three and pastor of Christ Faith Ministries, said she first took the youth in as a boy nearly a decade ago after finding him living on the streets and addicted to sniffing glue.
Kobe’s church operates from a makeshift zinc structure erected inside the yard of her RDP home on Stimberg Road in Dunoon.
“In 2017 we adopted a boy born in 2004. He was already sniffing glue at the time. We removed him from the streets and enrolled him at a school in Debe Marela in the Eastern Cape. Then he came back in 2019 and we enrolled him at a school in Maitland. Then he started smoking tik. When we sent him to the shops, he would run away with the money, and the other day he attempted to beat me,” said Kobe.
She said the youth had at one stage secured a job at Woolworths and appeared to be stabilising his life.
“He was working nicely,” she said. But he spiralled back into crime and drug abuse.
She said he abandoned his job and began scavenging through municipal bins, robbing residents and stealing clothes hanging on washing lines.
She said last year he allegedly stole from a resident in Doornbach informal settlement also known as Site 5, before being chased by furious residents into neighbouring Dunoon, where he was caught in Section 31 and severely beaten.
She said his increasingly erratic behaviour eventually forced her to apply for a protection order against him shortly before schools reopened after the Easter holidays this year.
She also approached the children’s court for assistance in arranging rehabilitation, but said he repeatedly refused to undergo drug testing and rejected every effort to help him.
“We went through the process of formally adopting him and didn’t finalise the process due to Covid in 2020,” she said.
“We were also willing to send him to Johannesburg for private rehabilitation but he refused.
She said tensions inside the home escalated shortly before the fire after the youth allegedly stole her daughter’s perfume.
She said her daughter had raised concerns about the theft, but she reassured her the situation would soon be resolved because she was in the process of obtaining an eviction order against him. The following day, the house was petrol bombed. The youth was not at home at the time.
In the aftermath of the fire, she said the youth allegedly boasted to her eldest daughter that he and his friends were behind the petrol bomb attack.
She said as flames tore through the house, the exit gate had been locked from the outside, trapping the family inside as they fought to force it open and flee to safety.
“I heard a loud sound. The neighbours thought it was a gunshot. A few seconds later, I realised it was a fire coming through the window. The fire was already in my room. I tried to salvage my phone and car keys. The phone fell on the ground and I was unable to save it, but I managed to take my car keys,” she said.
She said the fire destroyed everything the family owned, including academic certificates, two laptops, a driver’s licence, clinic cards and other personal belongings.
City Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson Jermaine Carelse confirmed crews were called to a house fire in Stimberg Road, Dunoon, at 11.25pm on Monday 4 May.
Carelse said firefighters from Milnerton, Brooklyn and Durbanville were dispatched to the scene and battled the blaze for more than an hour before bringing it under control.
“By 01:10, firefighters managed to extinguish the blaze that destroyed a formal and informal structure, leaving eight persons displaced. No injuries were reported and the cause is unknown,” said Carelse.