Survivor of Marry Me informal settlement community patrollers attack says life has worsened

A survivor of the brutal attack on community patrollers at the Marry Me informal settlement in Soshanguve said his life has gone from bad to worse since the incident in March.

The 23-year-old man, who has asked not to be named, spent four months recovering in hospital after sustaining injuries when he and 12 others were stoned and set alight by a group of unknown men.

Six people died in the ambush in the north of Pretoria, including his own brother.

The survivor said on the day of the attack, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

He said he had been visiting his brother, who was a patroller, and asked to join him for the night patrol to see how he does his job.

He was attacked with a sharp object to the head and lost consciousness.

"They also cut two fingers on my right hand. They said the fingers wouldn’t survive, it was badly damaged. These other fingers, on the left, they are not sure if the fingers can survive -- they keep operating on it. My face was also bad, too bad. I have wires on the jaws, and I lost some teeth, they tried to put my jaw together. They basically had to reconstruct my entire face so that it can look normal again."

After months in hospital, the 23-year-old has since dropped out of the Tshwane University of Technology, where he was a student.

"I am still trying to find a way to walk normal again and I still need to gain confidence to wear things like shorts. Losing my fingers on my right hand is a big challenge because that’s the hand that I use, and I used it to write, so it’s hard."

With only one attacker arrested earlier in 2025, the 23-year-old said he still lives in fear.