You have to be bereft of any decency to storm a police station and murder the cops on duty, so we all knew that the gang behind the Engcobo police station slaughter were going to be awful humans.

Even with that in mind, the depth of depravity on display when police raided the Mancoba Seven Angels Ministry cult is astounding.

Police have revealed that they freed “no fewer than 100 sex slaves”, as well as babies, from the cult’s headquarters.

These disturbing details via City Press:

National police commissioner General Khehla Sithole confirmed to City Press that “not less than 100” young girls between the ages of 12 and 21 were rescued from the cult’s premises.

He said the “indoctrinated and brainwashed” girls and young women were taken to social workers for counselling.

“In this church it is forbidden to have identity documents. Children are not allowed to have birth certificates and they are not allowed to attend school,” Sithole said.

…police escorted the girls and small babies to a waiting police vehicle. Some of the children looked terrified. Others appeared to resist the officers’ attempts to rescue them. Onlookers applauded as the bodies of the seven suspects were taken from the cult’s property and loaded into mortuary vans.

The girls were kept in about 10 corrugated iron shacks. Inside, mattresses lined the floor and clothes hung from wires or were dumped on the beds.

It’s also been revealed that the state was made aware of the cult’s criminality as far back in 2016. A report was presented to Parliament’s portfolio committee on cooperative governance and traditional affairs in October last year, including a warning that it “was a disaster waiting to happen”.

Here’s Commission chairperson Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva:

“Everyone [at the cult] was sitting waiting for Jesus to come. We told Parliament that this was a high risk and these people need urgent attention.

“We warned that there will be something else [that will happen] once their money runs out. Look what has happened,” Mkhwanazi-Xaluva said.

“This has been a ticking time bomb. We said either these people are going to commit suicide or something else will happen.

“We questioned the sanity of church leaders, who saw themselves as angels sent by God.”

The Eastern Cape social development department actually rescued 18 children from the cult in 2016, but law enforcement failed to shut the operation down.

The cult has long been notorious in the area:

…the cult, in the centre of Nyanga village, was established by a Mr Mancoba, who died in 2015.

Mancoba’s seven sons refused to follow their father’s successor. The “seven angels” and their mother subsequently became the leaders of the breakaway cult.

They soon ran out of money, which the officer said could explain why they attacked the police station and bombed two ATMs in town.

“They need money and are desperate. People of that church are brainwashed. They only live in their own world.”

The officer said at least three of the seven men killed in Friday night’s shooting were among the “angel” brothers, who had masterminded the massacre. One of them is on the run.

“The guys, known as angels, drive very expensive cars, but do not work. They are well known here in Engcobo,” the officer said.

“There are people here in this town who go to that church. People would give up all their pensions and donate them to the church,” said the officer.

Mkhwanazi-Xaluva said cult members were required to sell their cars, houses and other belongings and give the proceeds to the cult’s leaders.

Three of the seven Mancoba brothers were killed in Friday’s shootout, and it is believed that the rest of the suspects are hiding out in the surrounding mountains.

Police in the area remain on high alert, especially since it has emerged that the gang was planning further attacks on the police.

We can now look forward to Police Minister Fikile Mbalula taking all the credit when the rest of the gang is eventually apprehended.

Someone at government level needs to be held accountable for their failure to act on that 2016 report, though.

[sources:citypress&iol]