Langeni Forest News Today

Floods have eaten away at ground around pillars road is anchored on, accelerating damage

Meiringspoort mountain pass which was closed on Friday early morning due to Thursday night’s flash floods. Langeni Mountain

The Langeni Mountain Pass - a busy 17km stretch of road linking the Eastern Cape towns of Ugie and Mthatha, has been closed with immediate effect after experts discovered the ground in which pillars of the bridge are anchored in, was eroded by floods causing severe structural defects to it.

A prominent Eastern Cape family woke up to the worst possible news on Friday morning — their son had been kidnapped.

With family help, she had finally saved enough to send her son to initiation school.

As the death toll of initiates in the Eastern Cape increased to at least 11 reported cases, a Mthatha traditional leader summoned an urgent community meeting after an initiate from a respected local initiation school was found hanged in the nearby forest.

In all my years working as a journalist, I cannot recall how many times I have been asked to cover court cases. Normally people arrested for crimes are on their best behaviour when making court appearances. As journalists, we seldom get a sense of danger, even if those people are accused of having committed some of the most violent and atrocious crimes.

A contingent of heavily armed law enforcement officers accompanied six people facing multiple charges including cash-in-transit heists and the killing of a police officer who appeared in the Tsolo magistrate's court on Tuesday.

Law enforcement officials had their hands full early on Monday as an armed gang pounced on a cash van just hours after two people, including a municipal employee, were arrested for cash-in-transit heists.

There was high police visibility as six cash-in-transit heist suspects appeared in the Tsolo magistrate’s court on Tuesday. Camagu Zimela, 48, Siphelo Mase, 34, Siyamthanda Mkhangeli, 34, Fikile Msindwana, 54, Andile Nomlomo, 46, and Zoleka Ntsizi, 46, face multiple charges. They are accused of eight counts — including unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition, attempted murder and malicious injury to property — in relation to an attempted cash-in-transit heist in Langeni Forest out.....