Posted on 05/24/2003 2:35:39 AM PDT by gd124
white teenager has turned up at a police station near Pretoria speaking only an African language and claiming he has been living in the black community since being abducted 12 years ago.
The teenager, who answers to the name Happy Sindane, told police in fluent Ndebele that he did not know his original name but gave his date of birth as May 14, 1985 and claimed he had been kidnapped when he was six.
Blond-haired and with brown eyes, the slightly-built teenager, said he remembered only fragments of his life with his original family, including his parents' wedding photograph and the dog he kept as a pet.
He told police that, after being abducted, he once saw his photograph being broadcast on television by police investigating his disappearance. He shouted when he saw the picture but was beaten by his black guardians.
Insp Percy Morokane said: "This really is an extraordinary story. I am no psychologist but I have met the young man and he does seem a bit troubled. It really must have been a traumatic experience."
Police were looking at thousands of photographs in missing persons files from the past 15 years to see if the young man's story could be confirmed. Insp Morokane said that until the teenager's age could be verified, he had been made a ward of court and would be looked after in a state-run home.
A court order protected the boy from media interviews or having his photograph published.
Happy arrived at the police station at Bronkhorstspruit, a small town east of Pretoria, claiming he had been kidnapped by his white family's domestic worker some time in 1991. He said his own family was Afrikaans-speaking and lived in Johannesburg, although now he could understand almost none of the language.
He told police his family's black maid took him to a building site where he was left in the care of woman, whose surname was Sindane, and her boyfriend.
After a few days the couple tried to dump him outside a police station but he was terrified of being left on his own and insisted on staying with the couple. According to Happy, he then lived for 12 years with Mrs Sindane and a series of her relatives at a number of places in Mpumalanga province.
When she died he was passed from relative to relative, even going to a township school where he was teased mercilessly for being white.
Nobody reported the odd case of a white boy living in the community mainly because, according to Happy, one of his guardians had a reputation for being aggressive.
He told police he remembered seeing his picture being displayed during a television programme but when he pointed it out he was thrown against a wall and forbidden from watching television ever again.
He said Mrs Sindane once wrote down his real name on a piece of paper and gave it to him but he subsequently lost it. Since leaving school he said he had been worked as a slave by his "grandfather", doing menial tasks around the homestead and herding cattle.
Police said it would take 48 hours to search through the missing persons files to confirm Happy's story.
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