The search for Joslin, 6, has united disparate communities
06 March 2024 - 08:00
by PAUL ASH
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Hundreds of people and the tools of their trades, all looking for a little girl who went missing from outside her home while someone’s back was turned.
This is the world around the hunt for Joslin Smith of Middelpos, Saldanha Bay. Gone, now, for two weeks.
(There are others who have also gone missing in the past two weeks. Seventeen-year-old Ongeziwe Kamlana from Gugulethu. Lizalise Mayi, 13, from Crossroads. Enzokuhle Mtshobeni, 3, from Kayamandi. All gone while someone’s back was turned.)
The only clue for Joslin? There are no clues, though the scraps of clothing — apparently bloodstained — found in a field near Middelpos over the weekend might be a lead. Or they might not.
Grim: Police during the search for Joslin Smith in the Middelpos Forest, March 4 2024. Picture: Gallo Images/Die Burger/Theo Jeptha
People blame the boyfriend. People film the searchers searching. People say she’s been spotted in a car in Saldanha. A torrent of fake news that we can’t even blame AI for. People trying to cash in on someone else’s unending nightmare.
People scream at the cops as they trudge through fields and sunbaked ground and muddy vleis. Everyone has a theory. No-one saw anything.
Two weeks is an eternity when a person is missing.
If there is a shred of silver in this cloud it’s this: good people are pitching in from all over. Detectives pulled off the beat in Cape Town. The navy, searching on foot. Everyone exhausted and frayed and more than a little sad. Our bitter politics of despair and loathing put aside while the search for Joslin goes on.
Maybe the country can find a common purpose after all. Pity it takes a missing six-year-old girl to show us how.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
Missing girl brings South Africans together
The search for Joslin, 6, has united disparate communities
Police. Detectives. Firefighters. Navy personnel. Divers. Paramedics. Dogs. Boats. Drones. Horses …
Hundreds of people and the tools of their trades, all looking for a little girl who went missing from outside her home while someone’s back was turned.
This is the world around the hunt for Joslin Smith of Middelpos, Saldanha Bay. Gone, now, for two weeks.
(There are others who have also gone missing in the past two weeks. Seventeen-year-old Ongeziwe Kamlana from Gugulethu. Lizalise Mayi, 13, from Crossroads. Enzokuhle Mtshobeni, 3, from Kayamandi. All gone while someone’s back was turned.)
The only clue for Joslin? There are no clues, though the scraps of clothing — apparently bloodstained — found in a field near Middelpos over the weekend might be a lead. Or they might not.
People blame the boyfriend. People film the searchers searching. People say she’s been spotted in a car in Saldanha. A torrent of fake news that we can’t even blame AI for. People trying to cash in on someone else’s unending nightmare.
People scream at the cops as they trudge through fields and sunbaked ground and muddy vleis. Everyone has a theory. No-one saw anything.
Two weeks is an eternity when a person is missing.
If there is a shred of silver in this cloud it’s this: good people are pitching in from all over. Detectives pulled off the beat in Cape Town. The navy, searching on foot. Everyone exhausted and frayed and more than a little sad. Our bitter politics of despair and loathing put aside while the search for Joslin goes on.
Maybe the country can find a common purpose after all. Pity it takes a missing six-year-old girl to show us how.
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