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With two weeks still remaining in the winter initiation season, the Eastern Cape death toll has climbed to 14, already surpassing the 11 deaths recorded during the entire 2025 winter season.
Two of the dead initiates were allegedly assaulted, while another died after his initiation hut caught fire.
The rising toll has alarmed authorities, who fear more deaths before the season ends.
Nationally, 42 initiates have died so far this season, compared with 26 during the 2025 winter season. Of the Eastern Cape’s 14 deaths, seven have been recorded in the OR Tambo district.
Co-operative governance and traditional affairs MEC Zolile Williams was due to conduct an oversight visit to Nyandeni on Wednesday, where most of the OR Tambo deaths have occurred. Nyandeni and Port St Johns remain hotspots for illegal initiation schools, where boys as young as 10 have reportedly undergone circumcision.
“We are left with two weeks to go. I am damn worried,” Williams said on Wednesday morning.
Williams’ visit follows an oversight visit by the Eastern Cape legislature’s ad hoc committee on customary male initiation, led by chairperson Mlibo Qoboshiyane, to Alfred Nzo district.
“We need an extraordinary decision to liberate initiates from the jaws of death and pain they are enduring. Everyone must be accountable,” Qoboshiyane said.
The committee has proposed three interventions to address the crisis:
- Year-round awareness campaigns promoting safe and legal initiation.
- Boys’ camps involving government departments, traditional leaders, health professionals, traditional surgeons and nurses.
- An ambassador programme in which boys who have attended the camps promote safe customary initiation in their communities.
“The Eastern Cape and its traditional leadership, initiation forums, stakeholders, psychologists, health practitioners, municipalities and all concerned must end the dim chapter of a death sentence meted against future leaders of families — boys dying under the rite of passage,” Qoboshiyane said.
The province is considering convening an emergency summit after assessing this winter season. “Our greatest worry is the next summer season where the numbers are always high. Heat and unbearable weather conditions normally affect effective monitoring, customary surgical practices and illegal initiation schools,” he said.
Qoboshiyane called for a “deep cultural re-evaluation” of the practice and stricter approval of experienced traditional nurses capable of identifying health complications early.
“To refer initiates to hospital at a late stage is counterproductive and doesn’t help at all. We need to save the lives of innocent boys through pre-screening, during and after circumcision,” he said.
He also appealed to families to prepare initiates properly and ensure they attended registered schools.
“Each and every family must ensure that their boys are advised prior to proceedings, especially those that are ready for initiation, and physically and mentally supported by their families, including identifying traditional surgeons, nurses and assistants at the initiation school,” he said.
Eastern Cape provincial initiation co-ordinating committee chairperson Nkosi Gwazinamba Matanzima said the province had hoped to record no deaths this season after adopting a new strategy. “The current figures, with two weeks still to go before the closure of the season, make us all panic and fear for the worst.”
He blamed parents and community elders for failing to remain involved throughout the initiation process. “Each season we are disappointed and ashamed by the attitude of parents, the same people who send their sons to initiation school but who do not participate in ensuring they safely travel the journey. They are not there for their sons. They just want strangers to look after them, and that is wrong.”
The Eastern Cape’s 14 deaths comprise seven in OR Tambo, three in Amathole, two in Alfred Nzo, one in Buffalo City Metro and one in Chris Hani district.
Preliminary reports released on July 12 recorded 12 abductions, 75 initiates hospitalised and 58 illegal initiation schools nationally, of which 42 have since been shut down. Police have opened 150 criminal cases, made 40 arrests and rescued 180 initiates from unregistered schools.
Mpumalanga has recorded the highest number of deaths at 17, followed by the Eastern Cape with 14, North West with four, Limpopo with three, and Gauteng and the Free State with two each.
Daily Dispatch
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