He was chased down the streets of Kagiso, pelted with stones, missed by a bullet from the barrel of a police officer’s gun – and then burnt to death.
In an incident described as “barbaric” by Community-led Animal Welfare (Claw), residents chanted “kill that witch!” as they chased an animal that might have ended up in Kagiso because it was just missing the companionship that its troop in the wild might have offered.
Climbing the tree temporarily saved the vervet monkey from the snares of superstitious residents, who believed it was a harbinger of bad luck.
But then someone climbed up the tree and put the terrified animal in a bucket – and someone else doused the bucket with petrol.
“Someone struck a match. (The monkey) got out of the bucket and dropped down dead. They continued throwing stones at it,” said Tebogo Moswetsi yesterday.
Moswetsi had been asleep last Monday when friends came to his house to tell him about a monkey that was going around the township “talking to people”.
“I was curious to see this monkey that people claimed could talk, and when I saw a group of people chasing after it, I joined them. When it went up the tree, I climbed after it and brought it down because I was curious as I found it unbelievable that a monkey could talk,” he said.
In pictures captured by a resident, Moswetsi is shown holding the monkey seconds before it was burnt to death.
“I feel guilty, I shouldn’t have taken it down from that tree. I dropped it down after someone poured petrol on it. I had no choice,” he said.
When Claw’s manager, Cora Bailey, arrived at the scene, she said she had been devastated to see the ashen remains of the animal.
“I saw a big crowd of people and a very dead, burning monkey. I felt devastated. You could barely tell that it had been a living creature. There were very small children who looked very confused and frightened,” added Bailey.
She said animals fell victim to superstition, particularly when people did not know that animals wandered into townships due to the destruction of natural habitats by construction companies, or because they had been separated from their troops and wandering off game reserves. It was a quest to find a family,” said Bailey.
But a peaceful welcome was not what the monkey got when it wandered into a township whose seTswana name mean “peace”.
Bailey rushed to the area after a concerned resident, Johannes Bapela, had called her organisation with the news. Bapela had first called the police, but claims this was to no avail.
“They beat it up, then set it alight. I couldn’t sleep that night because it was too traumatic,” said Bapela, 41.
He dismissed the witchcraft claims as “totally baseless”.
“I think it was more of a mob mentality than anything else,” he said, adding such an incident had never happened in Kagiso before.
Police spokesman Warrant Officer Solomon Sibiya could not confirm claims that police had fired shots at the monkey.
“I enquired, but I don’t think it’s something that was reported.” - OMPHITLHETSE MOOKI