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East London — South Africa Teen Sinenjongo Phuthumani, a teenager, only discovered the joy of drinking in a nightclub with his friends after graduating from school last year.
The new passion is on the east coast tavern floor in a weekend tragedy where a 19-year-old friend and other party attendees killed 21 young people and caused national sorrow. When I fell and died, I ended up in fear.
"I have decided not to go to the club again," said Putumani, who joined other mourners for those who died at the Enyoveni tavern in Scenery Park, a town outside East London. Told.
"I'm still traumatized. I was very close to being in the dead. What I promised in the future has almost disappeared," he said. I turned to a grassy patch dotted with used tires.
The forensic team was still working to solve the mystery surrounding Thursday's death the day after the mourners gathered to commemorate the loss of so many children. The victims were all teenagers, the youngest being a 13-year-old girl.
Authorities said a source close to Wednesday's investigation was likely to be a chemical suffocation due to a gas leak on the poorly ventilated ground floor of a tavern, but teenagers said It suggests that they may have consumed what they poisoned.
"The place was so crowded that I couldn't get out. I felt like crying," said Phuthumani, who lives in another town 15 km (8 miles) away. ..
In the turmoil of trying to escape with a drink, Putumani realized that he could only find out later. One of her best friends, Sinotan Dom Gangalwa, was among the dead. .. "It was really painful," she said.
Ovayo Mkonqo, 16, terrifiedly talked about how a drinker began to feel dizzy in her tavern when he fell around her, and lost her friend that night. I did.
"It will take some time to recover," she said. "All our friends, we decided never to go to a place of entertainment at night."
Townships like Scenery Park rob whites of the best land and blacks. It is a legacy of white minority domination that has pushed South Africans into confined plots, usually on the edge of major cities and elsewhere where cheap labor is needed. ..
There are few employment opportunities in townships. Almost two-thirds of South African youth are unemployed, and drinking and dancing in taverns is one of the few places to enjoy.
She says, "People drink a lot," Putumani, who has just begun volunteering to volunteer a charity to educate young people about her teenage pregnancy, tells her school and sexually transmitted diseases. I dropped out. "It's a sad environment." (Written by Tim Cocks, edited by Alex Richardson)
