Pastor held over death of 9-year-old girls

POLICE arrested a pastor and two of his relatives on Thursday after two 9-year-old girls were beaten to death in an attempt to cast out “evil spirits”.

Police spokesperson Colonel Thembeka Mbele said Nkandla police had arrested three suspects, aged between 31 and 35, at Ezimambeni, including the mother of one of the victims. The three would appear in the Nkandla Magistrate’s Court on Monday.

Mbele said that when police arrived at a house in Ezimambeni after receiving a tip-off, they found the two 9-year-old girls lying on the floor “with bruises all over their bodies”.

Mbele said one of the girls had died and the other, unconscious, was rushed to hospital, where she died of her injuries a few days later.

“Upon questioning the family members... they alleged that the girls were attacked by evil spirits,” Mbele said. A local pastor, called to pray for the girls, had allegedly “joined in the beating of the girls”.

Investigations revealed that in 2015 a girl from the family had also died under mysterious circumstances. Police were probing her death.