A young gay man from Crawford is lucky to be alive after he was nearly beaten to death by two “enraged homophobes”.
Twenty-year-old Gino Jonkers was brutally assaulted and says he would have been killed by his two young attackers, had he not fought the urge to faint.
He laid a charge against the duo, aged 15 and 18, after the attack at his uncle’s house in Eerste River.
Police spokesman Captain FC van Wyk confirmed that the 15-year-old was arrested and appeared in the Blue Downs Magistrates’ Court on a charge of assault on June 24.
Gino says he was choked, hit repeatedly in the face, and his head smashed against a concrete fence, while his attackers were screaming: “ Ons maak die moffie vrek, maak die ding dood!”
Gino, a beauty spa consultant, tells the Daily Voice his attackers, from Eerste River and Elsies River, were known to him.
He says: “I had gone to the shop earlier and they had approached me for money. I said no. I lived with my uncle in 2013 when I was in matric and the [15-year-old] is a troublemaker.”
The slender, effeminate young man says he heard someone call him to the gate, but when he got there, he was grabbed into a chokehold and dragged across the road into someone’s backyard.
There, behind a Wendy house on the property, the two teens allegedly tried to kill him.
“I could not breathe or make a sound. I kicked against the Wendy house, but the tenants were too afraid to help me,” Gino says.
“The one choked me while both of them beat me in the face over and over. I thought I was going to die. I felt myself fainting and prayed to God to keep me awake and give me a fighting chance.
“They got tired, I think, and just when I was starting to give up, they actually took a break and I managed to get away. I ran as fast as I could to my uncle’s house.”
Gino, who also dresses in drag, says he now feels unsafe as a gay man, and won’t be visiting his uncle soon.
“I just want them to pay for what they did to me. I am a person and nobody has the right to hurt me,” says Gino.
Matthew Clayton from the Triangle Projects says homophobic attacks have become far too common in Cape Town.
“The Western Cape experiences a large amount of targeted sexual assaults and even murder. The attacks are violent and speaks volumes for the tolerance of the gay community,” says Clayton.