MASS INJURIES AT BDF BOOTCAMPS

Kagiso Sekokonyane and
Monkagedi Gaotlhobogwe
Staff Writers | Monday March 18, 2013 00:00

Police in Pandamatenga have confirmed that they stumbled upon a scene of wounded members of the bootcamp but told The Monitor that the matter has not been officially reported to them.

A member of the public Allen Tshekedi who happened to be in Pandamatenga on Tuesday last week says he saw a group of heavily wounded men and women escorted by a soldier and a youth officer at the Pandamatenga clinic Tuesday morning. According to Tshekedi's narration, the group looked frightened to talk. Tshekedi who works for Botswana Network for People Living with HIV AIDS (BONEPWA), says when he asked the youth officer who had accompanied the group what had happened, she told him she was under instructions not to discuss it.

Tshekedi says while there (at the clinic), a doctor from Kasane was dispatched to attend to the wounded group, all part of the  on-going bootcamp run at Pandamatenga for aspiring youth entrepreneurs.

'As I was questioning the youth officer in front of the BDF soldier who had accompanied the group, I could see the eyes of the youths light up, showing that they appreciated my intervention; I think something untoward had happened to them while in the hands of the soldiers, and they wish the public could know something is not going well', said Tshekedi.

A call to the Pandamatenga Clinic however hit a blank when a nurse in charge of the hospital refused to identify herself and denied that the doctor came specifically for the wounded group of boot camp youths. She said the doctor comes to attend to anyone who is sick every Tuesday. When pressed to confirm attending to a group of  bootcamp interns, the nurse at Pandamatenga Clinic was not forthcoming. Instead she said it is all lies.

The head of Pandamatenga Police says  he learnt about the incident from his deputy and referred The Monitor to her.However the Pandamatenga Police deputy station commander Lame Monageng says the matter was never reported to her, but she stumbled upon wounded youths who are members of the on-going  BDF bootcamps. According to Monageng she stumbled upon the scene when she went to borrow an ambulance.

The Station Commander at Pandamatenga, Sonny, says even though the matter has not been reported to them, they have the powers to investigate the incident as the police.

'We were unable to investigate further because we were in a hurry to transport victims of another accident'.Meanwhile a questionnaire sent to the Ministry of Youth Sport and Culture on Wednesday had not been responded to at the time of going to press.  When The Monitor made a follow up to the questionnaire via phone to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Youth Sport and Culture, Ruth Maphorisa on Saturday, she threw tantrums and told The Monitor to write what they want. Maphorisa said she was not going to respond to questions about why people visited the clinic.

Maphorisa also said she was unhappy that the last time The Monitor ran the 'sex pests' story, her ministry's response was not given front page, instead The Monitor made the youths' experiences the thrust of the story.