'Tell them I screamed, but no one answered'

In Madala's garden the mealies are almost as tall as the men who gather in their shadow every night.

This year promises to yield a bumper harvest but no one will touch the mealies in the courtyard of the old Durban Deep mine hostel, in Roodepoort on the West Rand.

Madala Mphande is no longer here to harvest his crop - he was murdered about two weeks ago.

The men gather at around 9pm, armed with golf clubs, cricket bats and sjamboks.

They are angry. Many of them heard the old man's screams the night the killers broke into his small room and mutilated him.

They cowered in their rooms at the hostel and did not do anything because they knew that if they went to help Madala, his attackers would turn on them.

Now, the community members say they are doing what the police will not - they are patrolling their neighbourhood and playing detective.

"Bullets are flying here every day," said patroller Adam Welkom.

The shootouts are between rival gangs of illegal miners working abandoned shafts.

Basutos are fighting Zimbabweans, people say.

The fighting has left a trail of bodies, say the patrollers - at least six or seven since December.

The police cannot give a number.

One of the patrollers has a photograph on his cellphone of a body that was dumped in a shaft and hidden beneath branches.

They heard the man screaming, as Madala had, late one night as he tried to flee his attackers.

Last Wednesday night, The Times accompanied a group of 50 patrollers.

We counted 19 shots in three separate incidents.

Unisa criminal justice professor Anthony Minnaar said the formation of neighbourhood watches is often a knee-jerk reaction to crime.

But Gauteng has cut back on regular community patrols in the past two years.

Last week, The Times did not see a single patrol van.

Residents say that is not unusual.

As the group stumbled over the rubble of old mine houses, talk often turned to Madala.

There are a few Malawians among the patrollers and they knew him as one of their own.

"He would tell us stories about wanting to go home," says Jonah Peter.

Others remember a kind old man who had a wide, friendly smile and wandered through the hostel speaking to everyone.

"There was something strange about the killing," says patroller Victor Mabe.

Madala had little money and his death was particularly brutal.

His attackers broke through his door, dragged him from his bed and stabbed him repeatedly. Then they set his body alight.

Muti is one theory.

The old man had a glass eye, an object prized by some sangomas.

Police spokesman Lieutenant Kay Makhubela says the police struggled to identify his burnt face.

Madala's friends believe the police were not doing enough so they went through the old man's blood-stained belongings and found a diary and located his relatives.

Madala will not be sent to Malawi for burial. He will remain here, among the people who loved him.