A gory find of mutilated school girl
Father, police suspect killing is related to muti
The father of a 10-year-old girl whose body was found mutilated, and her legs cut off from the knees after she went missing, is haunted by the sight of her lifeless body.
The mutilated body of Nonhlanhla Mabena was found in an open field less than a kilometre from her home in Etwatwa, Ekurhuleni, on Friday after she had been missing for a few days.
Her heartbroken father Shadrack Mabena, 58, said he found his daughter’s body after frantically searching for her for two days.
Nonhlanhla went missing while on her way to a spaza shop near her house.
“No parent should see their child’s body in that condition. I almost collapsed [when I saw her] because I could tell she was alive when they did this to her, and that she went through a lot of pain,” Mabena told Sowetan at the weekend.
“They used a grinder to cut off her legs and her left hand. The cuts were clean.”
Mabena said his wife, Nompilo, grew concerned when Nonhlanhla did not return from the shop.
Nonhlanhla was last seen walking down the road from the house, but she never arrived at the spaza shop, added Mabena, noting that the community started a search before she was reported missing to the police at the Etwatwa police station.
The still traumatised father said a day before she was found, her school trousers, a man’s underwear, and two bloodied towels were spotted a kilometre away from where the body of his child was discovered.
“That’s when I realised that my worst nightmare was becoming a reality. This sort of discovery is a father’s worst nightmare in a country that is not kind to its women,” Mabena said.
He said police were called to the scene following the search for the grade 4 Thembelihle Primary School learner.
“We only found her the next day. A child was sent to me to tell me that she was lying in the open field. My heart sunk to my stomach because I knew if she was okay they would have brought her home,” he said.
“It could only be witchcraft.” The father described his daughter as playful, funny and friendly. He said she was passionate about school and wanted to be a doctor, adding that he will miss seeing her child getting busy with her school work.
“She was the last of my children and was the only girl from my four children. I don’t know why they would have done something like this. It looks like they killed her for muti purposes.
“We don’t know if she was raped. The police said they would be able to determine this at a later stage after they were done running their forensic tests.”
Thabo Ngwenya, a local resident, was one of the first to discover Nonhlanhla’s mutilated body. He described the condition in which she was when he arrived at the scene.
“Her tongue was cut out, so were her eyes, one hand, and her legs. We are angry that the police didn’t do enough to make sure that they found her before she was killed,” he said.
Etwatwa police spokesperson Captain Ramothaki Maqabe said the girl’s cut-off legs were missing from the scene, and cops suspect the murder could be muti-related.
No arrests have been made and police are investigating.