South Africans mourn rape victim, say 'enough is enough'

[NBCNews]

  By Wendell Roelf, ReutersPublished at 10 p.m. ET -- BREDASDORP, South Africa - Hundreds of South Africans chanting  "enough is enough" gathered on Friday at a building site where a  17-year-old girl was mutilated and left to die after being gang-raped.

Their  tribute was testimony to how the killing of Anene Booysen has stirred  outrage in a country where many people have become oblivious to rampant  intercourse crimes and violence.

People marched in a procession to the  site in the sleepy town of Bredasdorp, 80 miles east of Cape  Town, where they placed flowers and candles by a simple wooden cross.

Booysen  was found by security guards lying only a short distance from her house  after partying at a nearby bar last Friday evening. She later died in  hospital.

Her foster mother, Corlia Olivier, recounted the  moment when she saw her daughter dumped amid the gravel and grass, her  stomach slit open down to her genitals.

"I heard her saying  ‘Mommy help me, Mommy help me' and I rushed over...and just saw her guts  hanging out," Olivier told reporters, tears welling up in her eyes.

The  incident and the public response has echoes of the gang rape and murder  of a 23-year-old student on a New Delhi bus last year, which caused a  national and international outcry.

Follow @NBCNewsWorldPresident Jacob Zuma  expressed shock and outrage, calling for the harshest possible sentences  for the killers and a concerted campaign "to end this scourge in our  society."

In Geneva, U.N. Human Rights chief Navi Pillay said  South Africa must tackle a "pandemic of intercourseual violence" and she was  concerned about low conviction rates for rapists.

"There is a  need for very strong signals to be sent to all rapists that intercourseual  violence is absolutely unacceptable and that they will have to face the  consequences of their terrible acts. The entrenched culture of intercourseual  violence which prevails in South Africa must end," said Pillay, herself a  South African.

South Africa has the highest number of reported  rapes per head of population of any Interpol member country, with more  than 64,500 reported in 2011/2012.

Even when suspects are  caught, only 12 percent of cases end in conviction. But intercourseual crimes  seldom cause little public concern beyond some soul-searching editorials  and anguished radio phone-ins.

The Womens' League of the ruling  African National Congress is trying to mobilize the public into similar  action to the protests against anti-female violence that took place in  India after the New Delhi attack.

On Friday, Cape Town radio  station KFM broadcast a "bleep" every four minutes as a reminder to  listeners that another South African woman will, on average, have just  been raped.

Death penalty?

At the Bredasdrop site,  religious leaders and politicians linked arms with Booysen's relatives  as they sang hymns and laid a wreath by the cross, adorned with a pink  ribbon.

"I still hear her footsteps," Olivier said as a stream of well-wishers arrived to offer condolences.

Maree Louw, commander of the local police station, said the murder was one of the worst cases she had seen in a long career.

"The brutality and the slaughter of this young teenager is beyond belief," Louw told Reuters.

Like  many towns in South Africa's Western Cape, Bredasdorp, with a  population of 35,000 people, has problems with drug and alcohol abuse  but, Louw said, most people would go to bed at night with their back  doors open and windows unlocked.

Booysen managed to reveal the  name of one of the attackers, a family friend, before dying. Three men  in their early 20s have been arrested and are expected to appear in  court on Tuesday on charges of rape and murder.

They face the prospect of life in prison if convicted.

Under  a constitution drawn up after the end of apartheid in 1994, Nelson  Mandela's "Rainbow Nation" abolished the death penalty. Some in  Bredasdorp wish that were not the case.

"This crime was very  sadistic and deserves the death penalty," said mother-of-three Sophia  Europa. "What they did was worse than anything done to an animal."

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