Deadly Vaal ride to school

No single institution carries end to end accountability for ensuring a child’s journey to school is safe, leading to lethal consequences

- Hasina Kathrada

he morning 17-year-old grade 11 learner Puleng Maphalla died began ordinarily.

She woke up on time.

‘The scholar transport minibus collecting schoolchildren from the Vaal arrived a few minutes late, her father would later explain, Not Maphalla.

‘There was no rush and no sense of urgency. This was a paid, routine service transporting pupils to school. One that parents are expected to trust.

Hours later, Maphalla was among 12 learners killed when the minibus they were travelling in collided with a truck on Fred Droste Road near Vanderbijlpark, south of Johannesburg, shortly after 7am on Monday.

‘Twelve learners were killed at the scene. Two others, who had sustained critical injuries, died in hospital in the early hours of Thursday 22 January, bringing the death toll tol4.

Maphalla attended El Shaddai Christian School. She loved church, her father said. She sang. The night before the crash, they had been together at a service.

Nothing about the morning suggested it would end differently from any other school day.

When her father arrived at the crash site, he said he could not rec-ognise the vehicle as a vehicle. It had disintegrated. Children lay scattered across the road. Maphalla was not there, He would identify her only later, at the mortuary.

Speaking to SABC News from the scene, he rejected the language that often follows such tragedies.

“| didn’t see an accident,” he said. “I saw murder.”

The interview, broadcast live and widely shared, travelled far beyond the initial news cycle. It lingered after the official statements, arrests and condolences had settled. Its persistence reflected a deeper public discomfort. This was not a tragedy that could be easily explained away as misfortune or error.