Six days after a crack team of investigators was deployed and a R350,000 reward announced, the families of three missing police officers are still without answers about their loved ones’ whereabouts.
“Every minute that passes triggers something. What is happening? Are they even alive?” asked Sipho Cebekhulu, the father of Constable Linda Cebekhulu.
Constable Cebekhulu, 24, his girlfriend Constable Boipelo Senoge, 24, and their colleague Constable Keamogetswe Buys, 30, left Bloemfontein in the Free State for Limpopo on Wednesday evening last week and have not been seen since. The last confirmed sighting of the trio was at an Engen garage near the Grasmere toll plaza on the N1 in southern Johannesburg on Wednesday night.
According to National Police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, investigations showed that the tracking device of their VW Polo was last detected at Gillooly’s interchange, east of Johannesburg. Later that night, the car’s tracking device and all three officers’ cellphones went offline. Their vehicle, a white VW Polo with registration number JCL 401 FS, has not been recovered.
Police suspect that the trio was hijacked and kidnapped while en route to their deployment in Limpopo. Constables Cebekhulu and Buys work for Operation Vala Umgodi, a unit that targets illegal mining activities. Cebekhulu is part of crime intelligence, while Buys serves in the cybercrime division. Senoge, who was on leave at the time, works at the Park Road police station charge office in Bloemfontein.
Sipho Cebekhulu shared that his son had promised to return within days to be present for his mother’s scheduled operation. “We are told the car was tracked up to Midrand, but their phones went off just after Grasmere,” he said. “That is all we know. It has been five days of uncertainty. His mother is still in hospital, and she doesn’t know about this. We did not tell her.”
Paul Senoge, Boipelo’s father, said he became worried when his daughter failed to send a message confirming her safe arrival. He reached out to Cebekhulu’s family, only to find they were also unaware of the trio’s whereabouts. Senoge revealed that his daughter and Cebekhulu had planned to marry.
“We started calling hospitals and police stations to check for any accidents. It’s been incredibly difficult. I can’t sleep, and it’s hard to eat,” he said. He suspects the trio’s work in Operation Vala Umgodi might be linked to their disappearance. “It is obvious because we can’t trace the car. There’s no evidence of a hijacking or that they’ve been dumped somewhere. But I remain hopeful they will come back alive.”
Buys’s husband, Lwazi Dabi, shares similar suspicions. Although his wife never mentioned specific threats, he said she often spoke of how stressful and dangerous her job was. “She would share the kinds of cases she was handling. Whoever is behind this likely knew they were in Bloemfontein and returning to Limpopo,” he said.
Dabi noted the possibility of a hijacking, given that their VW Polo is a common target. However, he added, “If it were a hijacking, we would probably have found them by now.”
He last saw his wife when she was picked up by Cebekhulu and Senoge at around 9:45 pm on Wednesday. At about 4 am, he noticed that Buys had sent him a text at 10:30 pm asking if he was still awake.
Dabi said one of Buys’s colleagues later visited him and informed him that police suspected the three officers had been kidnapped. “I am trying to stay positive, but nothing makes sense,” he said. “I keep replaying some of the conversations we had just to make sense of what could have happened to her.”
The police have deployed investigators from Gauteng and the Free State and set up a 24-hour operational centre to coordinate the search. They continue to offer a R350,000 reward for any information leading to the discovery of the missing officers.
