News24 | ‘I am praying for you, my child’: Desperate bid to find missing Brakpan teen

Monique Viljoen, 16, went missing after disappearing from her Brakpan home in Gauteng on Sunday.

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• Monique Viljoen, 16, disappeared from her Brakpan home in Gauteng on the night of Sunday, 30 August.
• Her mother discovered she was gone the next morning.
• The Grade 9 pupil’s friends told the family Monique may be in KuGompo City.

The moment Andrea Viljoen realised her daughter was missing, the ordinary routine of a school morning turned into every parent’s worst nightmare.

Last Sunday, 16-year-old Monique had gone to bed at the family home in Brakpan – but when her mother went to wake her for school the next morning, she was gone.

“Monique, I am praying for you, my child,” Andrea Viljoen said on Friday, five days after she last saw her daughter, wearing pyjamas when the family turned in for the night at their home on Gauteng’s East Rand.

According to her family, Monique was last seen at around 23:00. Her bed was empty when her mother went to wake her hours later.

Monique, who is in Grade 9, was wearing a black crop top and light mauve wide-leg pants, with her ash-blonde hair tied in a high ponytail that night.

The teen has blue eyes and is about 1.6m tall.

Her family opened a missing-person case at Brakpan police station earlier this week.

Andrea told News24 some of Monique’s friends have since told her the teen might be in KuGompo City (formerly East London).

Andrea said:

Apparently, it was discovered that she had been chatting over the phone with someone (an unknown adult) from East London. But we are not quite sure of this information.

“I don’t even know how I feel right now. It’s hard. We are trying to be strong, but let me admit it is not easy. I want my daughter to come home.”

Gauteng police confirmed they were investigating the circumstances surrounding Monique’s disappearance.

Private investigator Matt Venter of Missing in SA, an organisation that focuses on finding missing people, said they were investigating all possible leads.

“There is no confirmed information that she is in East London,” said Venter.

“There was some unconfirmed information that she was with a gentleman in East London. We are trying to establish as much information as possible over this,” Venter added.

Monique Viljoen, 16, went missing after disappearing from her Brakpan home in Gauteng on Sunday.

SAPS/Supplied

Andrea said she was praying for the safe return of her daughter.

“That’s all we hope for,” she said.

“I am urging whoever is with Monique to please return her safe.”

Meanwhile, concerned KuGompo City residents have rallied behind the search for the teen, with her poster circulating in various WhatsApp groups in the metro.

“We are worried and hoping for her safe return. Having a child go missing is something no parent would wish for,” said Amanda Timms, an anti-crime activist based in KuGompo.

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Timms, an administrator of various WhatsApp crime groups in KuGompo, said she had been encouraged by the commitment shown by several residents in the metro in trying to locate Monique.

“We don’t have enough information on whether she is here in East London. We are just trying to assist the family and the law enforcement officers,” said Timms.

She appealed to parents to constantly check who their children are chatting to on the phone.

“And this is not just about this little girl, because we don’t have proof that her disappearance was through chatting over a cellphone. I am speaking to parents in general, whether they have a boy or a girl child, to always check their chats on their smartphones,” she said.

Gauteng police spokesperson, Colonel Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi, said they were investigating a missing-person case and appealed to the public for assistance.

Anyone with information that could assist in locating her is urged to contact Sergeant Jacobs from Brakpan Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit on 084 643 6216.