Two young girls aged just two and 
three were kidnapped, raped and murdered in the town of Diepsloot, on 
the outskirts of Johannesburg. 
It
 was an attack that spread shock and anger across a nation all too 
familiar with violent crime, where several sex attacks happen every 
minute.
Cousins Yonelisa 
and Zandile Mali were snatched from their doorstep in broad daylight and
 their bodies discovered in a public toilet nearby, on October 15.
Yonelisa was the only child of Thokozani
 Mali. She said that the girls were playing just outside the house and 
she was checking on them every five minutes. Then they went silent, CNN 
reported.
She alerted relatives, neighbours and
 police, who combed the area – one of the most violent places in the 
country - in a bid to find them.
She told CNN that she cannot bear to talk about her loss.
She said: ‘I am trying to be strong. When I am sleeping, she always next to me, so when I think of that I feel like crying.’
Five
 men have been arrested for the kidnap, rape and murder of the girls and
 briefly appeared at a Pretoria court on Thursday. Their identities have
 yet to be made public.
Public
 protests followed the discovery of the bodies, with one person holding a
 banner that read ‘hand these dogs over to us and the people of 
Diepsloot’.
The murder of the girls, and torture 
of a young boy in Katlehong, were condemned by South African President 
Jacob Zuma last week.
He 
said: ‘These gruesome incidents of extreme torture and murder of our 
children do not belong to the society that we are continuously striving 
to build together.
‘Whilst 
we appeal to the communities not to take the matters into their hands, 
we also want to urge them to work with law enforcement authorities to 
find the perpetrators and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the 
law.’ 
There are 55,000
 reported cases of sexual violence a year in South Africa, according to 
the country's Medical Research Council. But the organisation says that 
the real figure is masked by the fact that many attacks go unreported.
Justice in Diepsloot is often meted out by mobs - the nearest police station is 10 miles away.
 
 
 
 
 
 
       
    
 
 
          
      
 
  
 
 
 
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