Mother who attended prayer service still missing five years later

A Pretoria family is still baffled by the disappearance of a mother who never returned home from a prayer service in 2011.

Sabeth Lindi Siboza, 55, disappeared without a trace at the service held on a mountain near Hartbeespoort Dam, outside Pretoria, by the Galelia Church.

Last month, Sowetan reported about another woman who also disappeared while attending a service by the same church in Limpopo. Brenda Ndzukulu's family found her body a week later at a Bronkhorstspruit mortuary. It had been dumped on the road near Cullinan. Ndzukulu's family blamed Galelia Church for her disappearance.

Also read: 'Church members killed my mother'

Siboza's brother Samuel Hadebe is agonising over his sister's fate.

"Right now no one knows if she's dead or alive. Her body was never found," Hadebe said, confirming Siboza had travelled to attend the church's prayer service.

"Fortunately, [Ndzukulu's body] was found. We don't know what happened to my sister."

Hadebe said he received a frantic call from his sister's now late husband Phillip John Shabalala on January 24 or 25 in 2011 that she had not returned from church, while congregants she had travelled with were home.

"We went to the mountain and searched for my sister. People who were there confirmed they saw her in the church service."

But some congregants apparently told the family a bizarre story.

"They said she got dizzy and told them she was seeing a white person calling her from a distance. They [calmed] her down. But she got dizzy again and told them the white person is calling her. Then she disappeared."

Hadebe said church leader Freddie Madzibane helped to search for Siboza.

A missing person's case was opened at the Brits police station. A K9 unit searched the mountain for about a week, without success.

Last week, Sowetan inquired on progress with Brits police, giving the case number. But yesterday, they were still not forthcoming with information.

Madzibane said he did not remember anything about Siboza, or even knowing anything about her disappearance five years ago.

"In 2011? Hey, I don't know. I know nothing."

Hadebe's brother-in-law Shabalala was among the 85 South Africans who died in Nigeria last year when a building at TB Joshua's Synagogue Church of All Nations collapsed.

He said Shabalala died a troubled man who wanted to know what had happened to his wife.

"He had gone there [Nigeria] to find out what happened to my sister."

Siboza had two children, now aged 19 and 33.

nkosib@sowetan.co.za