Seven people have drowned in overflowing rivers in the past two months.<\/p>\n
Two 10-year-old boys drowned in the Phalala River at Ga-Seleka outside Lephalale in Limpopo last week. \u00a0The body of one of them is still missing.<\/p>\n
Police have temporarily stopped the search due to the potential danger from wild animals in the river.<\/p>\n
The mother of one of the boys who drowned outside Lephalale is struggling to come to terms with her son\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
Thapelo Maropola and a friend Jan Monare were swept away by a strong current on New Year\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n
They were swimming with friends when they drowned.<\/p>\n
Maropola\u2019s body has not been found despite a search by police and community members. His distraught mother has accused the police of abandoning the search prematurely.<\/p>\n
The mother of the victim Martha Maropola says, \u201cThe drowning of my son very much hurts me. I am appealing to the police to hire divers so that they can retrieve my child. Only when they found my child can I find peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
The community says this is not the first drowning incident in the Phalala River. They say in 2020, two boys drowned and their bodies were never found.<\/p>\n
Residents have continued the search for Maropola\u2019s body, and they want the authorities to assist them.<\/p>\n
–SABC–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12416,"template":"default||default||default||default||default||default||default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[],"class_list":["post-12415","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Heavy rains in parts of South Africa's (SA) Limpopo province have brought pain to some families.||Heavy rains in parts of South Africa's (SA) Limpopo province have brought pain to some families.||Heavy rains in parts of South Africa's (SA) Limpopo province have brought pain to some families.||Heavy rains in parts of South Africa's (SA) Limpopo province have brought pain to some families.||Heavy rains in parts of South Africa's (SA) Limpopo province have brought pain to some families.||Heavy rains in parts of South Africa's (SA) Limpopo province have brought pain to some families.||Heavy rains in parts of South Africa's (SA) Limpopo province have brought pain to some families.||Heavy rains in parts of South Africa's (SA) Limpopo province have brought pain to some families.","published_date":"2025-01-08 00:00:00||2025-01-08 00:00:00||2025-01-08 00:00:00||2025-01-08 00:00:00||2025-01-08 00:00:00||2025-01-08 00:00:00||2025-01-08 00:00:00||2025-01-08 00:00:00","news_description":"","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18034,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12415\/revisions\/18034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=12415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}