a Soweto teacher was amongst the 77 people who passed away in the fire that engulfed a hijacked building in the Johannesburg CBD. Nokwazi Khanyile (27) was going to get married traditionally to her fiance in December this year.

Khanyile who hails from the Kwangono Village in Nkandla in the north of KwaZulu Natal was an educator at the Simelane Secondary School in Dobsonville, Soweto. Her fiance, Siyabonga Masikane who is also a school teacher in Newcastle, KZN said that he is far from recovering from the tragic news that his fiance is no more.

 

“It feels like a dream and I am still hoping that someone will wake me from it. My fiance passed away in a very traumatic way and that eats me up. I am always picturing the way she died and it’s affecting me because she left our two-year-old child is now without a mother,” he said.

Masikane said that Khanyile passed away with her two cousins Mpilonhle Seme and Bongi Nkomo. “I received a call from the people in Johannesburg who knew me to tell me that the building where Nokwazi was staying caught fire. Luckily I was aware about the incident since it was allover the news. I really had no idea that Nokwazi was also in that fire.

The following day I travelled to Johannesburg and she was nowhere to be found. “I searched for her in five different hospitals in Johannesburg until I found her burnt body at the Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital. I am heartbroken and to be honest God took away someone very beautiful he had given me.

It will be hard for me to heal from losing her but I will have to make sure that I channel the love I have for to our child,” he said. Masikane said that the funeral arrangements are still to be made as they are still waiting for the DNA results as her body was unrecognisable.