Grabouw police are investigating two cases of murder in connection with an incident at the beginning of March, during which a man was allegedly attacked by a mob accusing him of fatally stabbing a 3-year old child, after which he also died.
Captain Raldeen Atson, spokesperson for Grabouw police, reported that the child was transported to Tygerberg Hospital in Bellville, Cape Town on Saturday 4 March, around 19:00, after being found with stab wounds.
“She died on Sunday 5 March at approximately 03:00,” she said.
“A 34-year-old man who was identified as the man who allegedly stabbed the child was attacked by the community. He was taken to the day hospital where he died on Sunday 5 March at approximately 16:00 due to multiple injuries. Both incidents occurred in Rooidakke, Grabouw.”
A resident of Rooidakke, who preferred to remain anonymous, said the women of the community were so incensed by what happened that they took the law into their own hands.
“It is wrong to take the law into your own hands but the way that child was killed was very harsh,” the resident said. “We were told he broke her arms and legs and stabbed her. They say she also had a hole in her head from the attack.”
The suspect, the resident said, was reportedly the child’s grandmother’s boyfriend. “The community attacked him after he said he had killed the ‘devil’. We don’t know if he was under the influence of drugs to have believed this and to have killed her so brutally.
“The justice system fails our people and releases these criminals on bail, and they come back just to commit more crime, and that’s why the community took the law into their own hands. Yes, it is wrong, but the way that child was killed is wrong too.”
The child was laid to rest in the Eastern Cape on Sunday.
According to Atson, a post-mortem has been done to confirm whether the child had been sexually assaulted. The results haven’t been released yet.
