[imagesource: Leila Dougan / Daily Maverick]

It’s impossible to read about the tragic death of 13-year-old Enoch Mpianzi without becoming angry.

His death, and the murky details, half-truths, and outright lies surrounding how and why he drowned, have dominated headlines over the past week or so.

When a fellow pupil gave an eyewitness account of Enoch’s death, and the subsequent complete and utter lack of regard for his life shown by teachers and Nyati Bush and River Break lodge facilitators, many people’s blood boiled over.

It’s become abundantly clear that both the school and the lodge are now waging a PR battle against what could become a massive legal headache, but the hits just keep on coming.

This from an IOL report yesterday afternoon, for example:

The Star has reliably uncovered more painful details of a major negligence cover-up in Enoch’s tragic death, with the school’s headmaster Malcolm Williams and the school governing body fingered as leading the alleged deception.

It’s emerged that teachers were nonchalantly playing games while Enoch was enduring his horrific last moments at Nyati Bush and Riverbank in the North West last Wednesday.

Insiders revealed that Alex Meintjies, the leader of seven teachers who accompanied 198 boys to their Grade 8 camp, left the roll-call list and indemnity forms on the hired bus used by the school to ferry the learners to Nyati.

That bus then returned to Johannesburg after dropping everyone off at the camp, taking the roll-call list and indemnity forms with it.

On Wednesday, the day Enoch drowned, a headcount was finally conducted to see how many pupils had come on the camp (the grade has 208 in total).

It then became clear that Meintjies had left the list and forms on the bus.

Rather than take action, a criminal lack of responsibility ensued:

“The school had to send over a new list, which included all Grade 8 learners, including those not on the trip. When names were called out by the headmaster Williams, it was assumed that those boys who didn’t respond weren’t on the trip, including Enoch.

“But one boy told Williams that Enoch was missing, but Williams did not take him seriously.

“It was only when the school driver came with the original roll-call list on Thursday morning, did Williams realise that Enoch’s name was on it.

The pupil’s account of what transpired included multiple pupils telling teachers and camp facilitators that a child was missing, having last been seen as he was washed away down a river, and action was only taken the following day.

In fact, it was only at 11AM on Thursday that Enoch’s family was finally contacted to ask if their child had come on the camp.

It also emerged yesterday that Enoch isn’t the first child to drown at Nyati Bush and River Lodge, with Mellony Sias drowning during a hockey training camp at the lodge in 2010.

Eyewitness News reports that, including Mellony, AT LEAST four other children have drowned at the lodge since 1999.

You can read more on that here.

Imagine already having the deaths of multiple children on your hands, and then failing to hand out life jackets in the years that follow? It’s mindboggling.

Parktown Boys’ orientation camps have also been criticised in past years, with legal action having been taken in 2009. Here’s the Citizen:

…12 Parktown Boys matrics were taken to court by Pene Kimber, who said her Grade 11 son had been victimised through initiation practices at the school.

Kimber alleged that her son was among pupils who had been lined up against a wall and hit on their buttocks with hockey sticks, golf clubs and cricket bats until they bled. Her son was also allegedly made to rub Deep Heat on his genitals.

Then, in 2018, a report by Peter Harris of Harris Nupen Molebatsi Attorneys highlighted alleged sexual assault under the guise of “initiation practises”, as well as other alleged disturbing practices at the school such as “sexually predatory behaviour” by senior pupils against junior pupils, a culture of assault and sexual assault under the guise of “initiation practices” and “profoundly shocking” utterances made by teachers in the presence of pupils.

That report formed part of the investigation into Collan Rex, the school’s former assistant water polo coach, who was jailed for 23 years after being convicted of 144 sexual assaults and 12 common assaults.

Just what kind of a culture is being cultivated at this school?

There are so many unanswered questions at this stage, but it’s becoming clearer by the day that the lives of these schoolchildren were not valued by those entrusted with protecting them.

[sources:iol&citizen]