When is it going to be Sinoxolo’s turn for justice? That was the question put forward by an emotional deputy police minister, Maggie Sotyu on Thursday.

She asked why teenager Sinoxolo Mafevuka's brutal death barely made a ripple in the media, while sixteen-year-old Franziska Blöchliger has been splashed on almost all the front pages.

The Khayelitsha teenager was found half-naked in a communal toilet over a week ago, with her clothes stuffed in a toilet cistern.

Sotyu said the teenager had been raped before she was killed.

The minister received a briefing from the Khayelitsha Cluster on Thursday, where she demanded to know what was happening with the case.

“Everywhere you go here, the focus is on Franziska. When is it going to be Sinoxolo’s turn? I am a mother of children of the same age as Franziska and Sinoxolo, you can’t expect me to sit in my office and say the police have it handled,” she said.

She said it was annoying that it seemed the police were only focused on one case, and had so far even made three arrests, less than 48 hours after Blöchliger died.

And yet Mafevuka’s family had not even had statements taken by the police, she said.

This, Sotyu said, made it seem as if the police did not care about black lives, which was not the case.

“No one knew about Sinoxolo. No one knew that there was such a case here in Khayelitsha, only the police here know and they communicate everything. They came up with arrests of suspects in the Tokai case, and yet when it comes to Sinoxolo, we didn’t hear anything about arrests, about witnesses. Nothing.”

The minister also laid into the media for “selective reporting”.

Sotyu, who was accompanied by MP Thandi Mahambehlala, said Mafevuka’s case had merely been a footnote in most media outlets.

Mahambehlala concurred with Sotyu.

She said the plight of black people was going unnoticed by the media.

She also raised concerns about the “racism in Cape Town”, which led to one death being portrayed as more important than the other.

News24