Cape Town - She owes her life to a scrap collector who saved her from the clutches of would-be abductors, who forced her into a car, stabbing her in the face.
On Tuesday, mother of two, Mieshka Achmat, 25, from Parkwood, who usually takes transport to work in Diep River, said she was forced to walk just after 9am, after having taken her son to a health centre.
When Achmat arrived in Southfield, she passed a parked car. The driver started the vehicle and proceeded to follow her.
“I then walked into another road and ran and that's when I realised I was in a dead-end road, and the car turned in that very same road,” she said.
Achmat sent her mother a voice note alerting her to this and after putting her phone away, she grabbed her perfume bottle from her bag and placed it in her hoodie pocket to use in self-defence.
“I had no choice then but to turn around and pass the car. The guy in the back seat got out and said ‘Get in’. I just looked at him and tried walking past him and he then had me by my hoodie and threw me in the car trying to cover my face with a cloth.
“I then put up a fight and started hitting him with my perfume and that's when he started hitting me in my face and stabbed me in the face,” she said.
A Parkwood man, who usually searches for scrap in Southfield, appeared and assisted Achmat by grabbing hold of the assailant, allowing her to get away. She ran away from the vehicle with blood oozing from her open wound.
“The driver's face was closed but the one that had me, I remember his face clearly,” Achmat said.
She was not able to open a police case as she did not know the model of the car or its number plate.
When visiting Achmat on Wednesday, the man who rescued her informed her it was a white Nissan without a number plate.
Meanwhile, police have confirmed that there are no new developments surrounding the disappearance of 32-year-old Manenberg resident, Shireen Essop. Essop went missing on Monday at around 2pm at Weltevreden Road.
Essop had left work and was proceeding home when she was accosted. Her vehicle was located between 30-40 minutes later in Browns Farm, Philippi.
Police are also searching for 13-year-old Maria Pops from Wallacedene, Kraaifontein, who disappeared in Cape Town on Monday. Police spokesperson Wesley Twigg said investigations into both cases continued.