A sound like thunder jarred 72-year-old Zithulele Bavuma awake in the early hours of last Thursday morning, when a car broke through his wall, damaging his house and destroying some belongings.
It was around 2am, when the driver, whose name is known to TotT, lurched down the embankment to Bavuma’s house while allegedly chasing his girlfriend in his white Volkswagen Polo Vivo Sedan.
“I woke up and ran away to call my neighbours, thinking that I was attacked by thieves,” Bavuma said. “When I was opening the house door I could hear someone speaking in the car but I did not want to entertain him because I thought it was thieves.”
Bavuma said when he came back with some neighbours they found the driver of the vehicle limping in front of the house.
“We did not first pay attention to him. We went to assess the damage of the house and found out that the wall of the other room was completely damaged and the wall unit, couches and everything that was inside that room was destroyed as the wall had fallen inside the house,” he said.
TotT visited the scene and observed that the entire three-room house was severely affected as the other two remaining rooms have visible cracks.
Speaking about the perpetrator’s response when asked what had happened, Bavuma said the driver told them he had had a fight with his girlfriend who allegedly broke the back window of the car.
According to Bavuma and his sister Nomaledi, the driver was angry with his girlfriend and was chasing her in his car, leaving the road and driving along a footpath.
In the process he lost control of the car and went down an embankment.
The front of the car appeared severely damaged, but the driver had only sustained minor injuries, Bavuma said.
Bavuma was relieved to have escaped injury himself.
Despite having lost valuable belongings, Bavuma said he had not opened a case against the driver. They made arrangements that he should immediately take responsibility and make repairs.
“I did not open a case against him because he was going to stay in jail and after few days he comes back, while I have no one to fix my house. I asked him to fix my house and he promised to fix it on November 25,” he said.
The day the incident took place, Bavuma said he was stranded for a place to sleep as the side of the fallen wall was open to his bedroom.
