Man dies trying to help tourist
2002-11-18 17:39
Johannesburg - The man who was shot dead on Sunday in Mpumalanga after he tried to help the British tourist who was hijacked and repeatedly raped, was a man whose helpful nature eventually cost him his life.
Domingo Chamber's distressed uncle Daniel Mazibuko (62) said on Monday: "I don't understand why those people killed Domingo. Domingo liked to help people, he was a good man."
Mazibuko said his nephew was on his way to Mozambique to visit his wife and children when he spotted the overturned red Toyota Venture on the Badplaas-Barberton road and pulled over to help.
Unfortunately for Chamber the six people he tried to help were not merely accident victims, but also hijackers.
The four hijackers had attacked the 29-year-old British tourist and her South African friend on the Sabie-Lydenberg road and had terrorised them for some 14 hours.
The men, who allegedly gang-raped the woman and stabbed the South African in the leg, drove around in the southern Lowveld with the couple in a night-long orgy of violence that only came to an end when they overturned the car at 04:00.
Sadly, the end of the ordeal for the Briton and her friend - who escaped after their attackers overturned the vehicle - was the beginning of the ordeal for the Mozambican father of three.
As soon as the hijackers spotted him and his friend approaching the overturned vehicle, they opened fire on them, killing Chamber and wounding his friend.
Chamber recently came to South Africa to help his uncle run a private transport company.
- SAPA