GroundUp reports that a group of community health workers are receiving trauma counselling after they were threatened and hijacked at gunpoint while travelling between towns in the Eastern Cape last week.

The staff were contracted by One to One Africa, a non-profit organisation that provides health services to about 100 underserved villages in and around Ngqeleni. On the morning of 7 May, five One to One Africa health workers were a few kilometres outside Mthatha when they were stopped by armed men and hijacked. The staff were using a converted 4x4 bakkie as a mobile clinic to provide free health checks for children and the elderly and to distribute chronic medicines to those who could not access local clinics. Eastern Cape police spokesperson Majola Nkohli advised that three occupants armed with firearms in a white Toyota Hilux forced the vehicle off the road and hijacked it. In the vehicle that day were a driver, two field workers, a nurse and a student doctor. The gunmen abandoned them in a forest and took off with the organisation’s vehicle, with the medication inside. Nkohli said a case had been opened at Ngqeleni police station and was under investigation, but there have been no arrests. Village Chief Gideon Vulihlanga Sigcau lamented that the incident has left the community in distress.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik at GroundUp

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