His father, Clive Domingo, said he saw him at the family’s home in Uranus Street, Helenvale, when he came to eat lunch on Saturday.
“He went to play outside. After dark, when he didn’t come home for supper, I got worried,” Domingo said.
“That child always comes home when he is hungry.”
He said they cooked supper at 5pm and when Recolin did not return they went looking for him.
By Sunday morning, community members were out in full force looking for the child.
“We asked his friends who were playing with him in the street. Nobody knew where he was,” Domingo said.
On Sunday afternoon, a child came forward to show police where he and Recolin went fishing on Saturday.
Police divers were called out to a dam in the kloof.
His young friends who gathered at the scene said there were a few footpaths that led to the “quarry” where they would sometimes play, even though they had been warned that it was dangerous.
They said that in summer they would swim in the dams at the bottom of the quarry.
Investigating officer Detective Sergeant Luzuko Pehlo confirmed police divers were deployed to search the dam.
As night fell the search was called off but it would continue in the morning, he said.
Meanwhile, police in Gelvandale started an immediate manhunt for the suspects involved in a gang-related shooting in Kobus Road on Sunday, when a stray bullet hit the girl.
Spokesperson Colonel Priscilla Naidu said acting Eastern Cape commissioner MajorGeneral Andries Swart had implemented a 72-hour action plan to find the gunmen.
“It is alleged that on Sunday at about 12.50pm the four-year-old child was playing along Kobus Road in Gelvandale when shots were fired.
“It is further alleged that members of the NTB gang and an unknown rival gang were shooting at each other when a stray bullet hit the child in her back,” Naidu said.
“[She] was taken to her home, which is not far from the scene of the crime, from where she was transported to hospital by an ambulance.”
Provincial health department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said on Sunday night that the little girl, who cannot be named at this stage, was being treated in the intensive care unit at Dora Nginza Hospital. She is in a stable condition. Police are investigating a case of attempted murder.
Anyone who can assist is asked to contact Detective Warrant Officer Clive Phillips on 082-387-6765 or their nearest police station.
All information is strictly confidential and callers may remain anonymous, Naidu said.
Extensive search for missing Helenvale boy
Police also hunt suspects after girl, 4, wounded by stray bullet in Gelvandale
Image: Fredlin Adriaan
Two high-priority searches are under way in the Bay’s northern areas where a little boy has gone missing and a little girl was shot.
Fears for the life of the eight-year-old Helenvale boy were mounting on Sunday afternoon as the community came out in full force to look for him.
And police are hunting for suspects after a stray bullet hit a four-year-old girl in Gelvandale.
Scores of children and mothers, most in their pyjamas and gowns, gathered on the edge of a steep kloof on the border of Barcelona, on watch as police and a group of men searched for the boy below.
Recolin Witbooi, a pupil at Hillcrest Primary, went missing on Saturday afternoon.
Image: Supplied
His father, Clive Domingo, said he saw him at the family’s home in Uranus Street, Helenvale, when he came to eat lunch on Saturday.
“He went to play outside. After dark, when he didn’t come home for supper, I got worried,” Domingo said.
“That child always comes home when he is hungry.”
He said they cooked supper at 5pm and when Recolin did not return they went looking for him.
By Sunday morning, community members were out in full force looking for the child.
“We asked his friends who were playing with him in the street. Nobody knew where he was,” Domingo said.
On Sunday afternoon, a child came forward to show police where he and Recolin went fishing on Saturday.
Police divers were called out to a dam in the kloof.
His young friends who gathered at the scene said there were a few footpaths that led to the “quarry” where they would sometimes play, even though they had been warned that it was dangerous.
They said that in summer they would swim in the dams at the bottom of the quarry.
Investigating officer Detective Sergeant Luzuko Pehlo confirmed police divers were deployed to search the dam.
As night fell the search was called off but it would continue in the morning, he said.
Meanwhile, police in Gelvandale started an immediate manhunt for the suspects involved in a gang-related shooting in Kobus Road on Sunday, when a stray bullet hit the girl.
Spokesperson Colonel Priscilla Naidu said acting Eastern Cape commissioner MajorGeneral Andries Swart had implemented a 72-hour action plan to find the gunmen.
“It is alleged that on Sunday at about 12.50pm the four-year-old child was playing along Kobus Road in Gelvandale when shots were fired.
“It is further alleged that members of the NTB gang and an unknown rival gang were shooting at each other when a stray bullet hit the child in her back,” Naidu said.
“[She] was taken to her home, which is not far from the scene of the crime, from where she was transported to hospital by an ambulance.”
Provincial health department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said on Sunday night that the little girl, who cannot be named at this stage, was being treated in the intensive care unit at Dora Nginza Hospital. She is in a stable condition. Police are investigating a case of attempted murder.
Anyone who can assist is asked to contact Detective Warrant Officer Clive Phillips on 082-387-6765 or their nearest police station.
All information is strictly confidential and callers may remain anonymous, Naidu said.
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