Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Sunday Times, South Africa - Sunday, August 2, 1998
Taschica Pillay
Qithi "Shomi" Nikwe, 23, allegedly told some of his victims - aged between eight and 15 years - that he had the AIDS virus. He apparently believed he could be cured of the disease by having sex with young girls.
Nikwe was wounded during a shoot-out with police last week after an alleged rape spree across the former Transkei and southern KwaZulu-Natal.
A police spokesman, Superintendent Dawood Kader, said one of the victims, aged 11, had tested HIV-positive. The HIV status of the other alleged victims is not known to the police.
Kader said police had sent samples of Nikwe's blood to be tested for the HIV virus.
Another policeman said: "A sangoma apparently told him that he would get rid of the disease by having sex with young girls."
He said Nikwe had a knack for escaping from investigators as police closed in on his hideouts.
Nikwe also escaped from police custody in Harding last June. His alleged raping spree continued afterwards.
Nikwe's accomplice, Temba Majola, who allegedly also raped some of Nikwe's victims, was shot and killed by police in Bizana, in the Transkei, in February.
Residents in the Port Shepstone area, where Nikwe allegedly struck several times, said he had told his victims that he was "cleansing himself" of his disease.
The grandmother of one of the victims described how a man, allegedly Nikwe, had burst into her home and run off with her grandchild after firing shots into the air.
"He kicked the door open, ransacked the house and grabbed the little girl before running out into the darkness," she said.
The assailant dragged the child into the bush and raped her, her grandmother said.
"When she came home she could hardly walk. She said the man told her he had AIDS."
Nikwe is also wanted on charges of housebreaking and escaping from custody.
One youth who became friendly with him said the suspect had told him that he had fled Transkei after killing his own grandmother when she refused to give him money.
According to Port Shepstone residents, where Nikwe allegedly struck several times, he was also involved in political violence a few years ago, at one time presiding as a "judge" of a kangaroo court.
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