6,000 Rand for 15 minutes reservation

Dear Southern Sun team, we trust this finds you well. On Jan 11 we were driving from Capetown to Johannesburg and our car broke down. We were standing with a small kid in the plain sun for 4 hours. We decided to go back to Capetown and reserved a room at the Sun Square Capetown Gardens. About 15 minutes later a technician was able to fix the car. So we immediately called the hotel and asked for a cancellation. A bit later we used the app and asked for a cancellation. About 2 hours later the hotel called us back and said that they will not charge us anything, because we called them 15 minutes after the reservation was made and because we were in an emergency situation. However they asked us to reach out to booking and kindly ask to refund the payment. I have reached out to booking and the agent said that they sent a request to the hotel and that they wait for the hotel‘s response. Since then I reached out to the hotel via email and the booking app and did not get a response. I called the hotel twice, explained the case and asked to speak to the manger who was not available. I left twice my number and was not called back. I just got an automated message from booking stating that Southern Sun refuses to refund the amount we paid. Basically Souther Sun Capetown blames booking and booking is blaming Southern Sun. We are supposed to pay 6000 ZAR for a reservation that was canceled 15 minutes later. That is not just considering the circumstances. It was a reservation for 3 nights and the probability that the room was rented out to another customer is very highly because we canceled 15 minutes later. We would highly appreciate your help. Best regards, Arthur