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The 13-year-old boy from Krugersdorp in Gauteng who died on Wednesday morning after he fell from a moving train will be buried next to the sister he never knew.
JC van Loggerenberg’s sister died years ago as a baby before he was born. She was buried in the Sterkfontein cemetery in Krugersdorp.
A memorial for JC will be held at 10 am on Monday at the West Rand Bikers Church in Krugersdorp. He’ll be cremated and his ashes buried next to his sister’s grave.
Their mother, Annelize van Loggerenberg, was too heartbroken on Thursday to talk about the second time she’s lost a child.
JC died on Wednesday morning just after 8 am when he fell from a moving train at the crossing of Main Reef and Chamdor roads in Krugersdorp. He and a friend had been on their way to school to fetch their report cards. Both attended the Roodepark School in Roodepoort.
The two boys were separated shortly after boarding the train at the Luipaardsvlei station.
At the next station, Witpoortjie, a passenger told JC’s friend he’d seen JC falling from the train. He jumped from the train at Witpoortjie and followed the tracks towards JC. Transport police were already at the scene, and the friend then accompanied one of them to fetch Annelize from her home in Mindalore.
JC was still alive when Annelize arrived at the scene. “He was icy cold. I took off my jacket and put it over him. He said ‘Mamma’, but I told him to save his strength, as the ambulance was on its way,” she told YOU earlier. But when the ambulance arrived a short while later, JC was gone.
Read more: The chilling last words of 13-year-old who fell off train
Annelize is still heavily traumatised about her son’s death and hasn’t been able to identify his body yet at the morgue in Roodepoort. “His little body was so broken from his injuries after the fall, I couldn’t look at it again. He was really badly hurt.”
She says she’d rather remember him as “the sweet boy” whom she loved so much, “without cuts and bruises”.
Annelize says there are rumours JC may have fallen from the train because one of the doors hadn’t been closed. “We don’t understand, but we’re not leaving it there,” she says.
“My child paid with his life and now I have to live with it every day.”
Sergeant Tshepiso Mashale of the Krugersdorp police earlier confirmed the incident.
“An investigation was opened at the Krugersdorp police station after the body of a schoolboy was find on the train tracks this morning,” Mashale said on Wednesday.
When contacted for comment on Thursday morning, Lilian Mofokeng, spokesperson for the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa), said she’d comment as soon as possible on the incident and on the allegations that the train doors had been open while the train was moving.
- Marizka Coetzer
