A MOTHER’S PAIN Mum buries two murdered daughters in 11 months
65-year-old Mosetsanagape Kabelo is a woman in despair.
Last Tuesday, her life was torn apart again, experiencing a horror that no parent should ever have to live through. It is a pain the mother-of-seven has faced twice in less than a year.
At the weekend, she laid her daughter, Omphile Kabelo, to rest. She was raped and killed four days earlier, reportedly abused and murdered by two men she knew well.
It is the second time the old woman has had to bury a slain child.
In October last year, Omphile’s younger sister, Botshelo Kabelo, was hacked to death by an axe-wielding thug at the family home in Moshupa. Kabelo witnessed the entire attack, an assault so violent that Botshelo’s head was cut clean off her body.
“I saw her head next to me and I took it and placed it next to her body in disbelief. I had been chatting to her just minutes before, then suddenly she was dead. Today, I have lost another child,” narrates Kabelo, the shock and hurt obvious in her weathe r - b e at e n face.
T h e mourning mother was speaking to The Voice from her home on Wednesday (15th September) afternoon, the day after Omphile was killed.
We arrived to find her in the company of two elderly neighbours. She questioned why young men from their neighborhood would rape and kill her daughter. “They were no strangers,” she said.
The emotional mother had lost hope in humanity and questioned how mother-nature can be so cruel to a God-fearing Christian woman such as herself.
“How can I lose two daughters, a year apart, both brutally killed by men?” she asked The Voice, seeking answers we did not have.
Kabelo began by narrating the latest incident, explaining she feared something was wrong when her daughter did not return home that night, something she would not ordinarily do.
“Omphile was killed by our neighbours, people she knew and hanged out with. It hurts because these are people we know and she probably grew up with them as they are in the same neighborhood,” revealed Kabelo, who learnt of Omphile’s tragic fate through her son, Dipako Kabelo.
The 48-year-old had left home early in the morning headed for the clinic, but returned a little later accompanied by police officers and weighed down with shattering news.
“He says he found her naked. She had been raped, killed. I don’t know what to say really because I am beginning to question why such is happening to me. I have lost two daughters in a space of a year. The first one was butchered to death right in front of me, today two men raped and killed my other daughter. God, what have I done to deserve this?” she wondered miserably, her face wet with tears.
Casting her mind back, 11 months, to when her hell began, Kabelo stated simply, “I saw it all.”
Pausing to compose herself and control her breathing, which comes in short, sharp gasps, she narrated, “Last year, around the same time, in October to be exact, I was with my other daughter when a man walked in. We did not read much into it because I thought he was just like any other visitor. As soon as he approached us, he unleashed the axe on my daughter. He repeatedly hit and butchered her.”
Although she screamed, begging for her daughter’s life, Kabelo says her cries had no impact on the intruder.
“He chopped her down without mercy,” she reflected, adding she will never forget the moment she had to pick-up her daughter’s decapitated head from the bloodsoaked soil.
For his part, Dipako told The Voice that he found Omphile’s naked body at a neighbours house.
“I was getting ready to start the day, on my way to the clinic, I was met by two of our neighbours who indicated they had something to show me. They directed me to that house over there (pointing in the distance) and they said my sister’s name and nothing further. Walking towards the house, I told them we had been looking for her. At the time, I thought to myself maybe she was drunk and she was sleeping.” Sadly, he was mistaken. “When I got there, I found her naked. It looked like she had been raped and killed. I immediately rushed to report to the police,” disclosed Dipako, still unable to believe what had happened.
The police have since arrested two men in connection with Omphile’s death while Botshelo’s suspected killer is awaiting trial.