Cape Town - Load shedding can affect a crucial time when a person, especially a child goes missing, known as the golden hour.
Action Society’s Ian Cameron has since together with their lawyers sent a letter to the SAPS.
Missing persons organisations together with Cameron agree that load shedding has a negative impact on the search operations due to darkness, cellphone reception and equipment.
An example of this is the case of Tamia Botha from Paarl.
During the September 25, 2022 search for Tamia, fondly called “Mia”, search teams were forced to use their cellphone torches to create light.
Tamia vanished after she was last seen visiting a shop in Klein Nederburg in Paarl.
A day later, her lifeless body was found by children playing on a field near a school.
Two suspects were arrested and later released due to a lack of evidence.
Police spokesperson, Captain Frederick Van Wyk confirmed there was no arrest in the case.
Last week, Cameron took to social media, where he showed viewers the spot where little Tamia’s (body) had been found and said how search teams were forced to use cellphones to look for her
“In many cases you are unable to reach the police because load shedding generators do not work; when you call you cannot get hold of anyone,” he said.
“With load shedding there are no street lights. When Mia went missing, it was just before load shedding, it was still light outside and suddenly as they were searching, load shedding hit and then the community tried to look for her using the light from cellphones.
“There is no way you can find someone in the pitch dark, using the light of a cellphone, especially such a small child. Load shedding not only endangers children, but threatens any way we are able to find them.”
Cameron added the DNA report was also outstanding.
Ingrid Harding of Track n Trace Missing persons and a community leader in Paarl said they were now awaiting feedback from Cameron’s team on the status of their pressure placed on police to make an arrest.
Elaine Sauls, Public Relations for Track n Trace Missing person explained that load shedding affected many of their cases and that often the first hour when a person goes missing, is the most important.
“The members on the ground searching cannot be contacted to give new information or a warning that there is danger in the area due to the very weak network coverage. A search can go on for hours and you cannot charge your phone and you cannot see anything in the darkness.
“If we postpone the search until load shedding is over, we have lost precious time known as the golden hour after a person goes missing. This can decrease the likelihood of the person being found.
“People are not keen to open their doors during load shedding and load shedding opens the door for kidnappings because of the poor cellphone reception and the issue of darkness and searches.”
Candice van der Rheede, founder of Western Cape Missing Persons Unit agreed there was a concern.
“My laptop crashed, I do not have a working laptop, I cannot charge my phone properly, we cannot make flyers and this is the most important when it comes to a missing child, a child doesn’t have a direction even a person who has dementia. What helps is a flyer which has their face on it, a photograph and we cannot circulate this when we do not have electronics that are working.
“If we do a search at night for a child, street lights are not working and the torches are not reliable”
Siya Monakali of Ilitha Labantu, an organisation which advocates for the rights of women and children said they were deeply saddened by Mia’s murder.
“Cases of this nature are further exacerbated by load shedding which compromises police efforts towards investigations. We appeal to community members to assist the police with any information to help bring justice to the family of the victim and we further appeal to our justice system to impose the harshest sentence on those accused on this crime, it is a sad state of affairs that our children are no longer safe in our society.”