Cape Town - A young girl has told how she fought off an alleged rapist as he dragged her to a canal where he threatened to kill her and dump her naked body.
The 13-year-old managed to escape from her attacker, running home in the pouring rain in nothing but her thin jacket.
Her alleged rapist has since been arrested. He was denied bail at the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court last week.
On Monday, the girl opened up about her harrowing ordeal for the first time since the attack in March, telling Daily Voice she knew that if she didn’t fight her attacker, she’d be dead.
The teen, who lives in Lavender Hill, said she was walking to her grandmother’s house in Steenberg when her alleged rapist whom she only knew as a taxi guard, approached her.
“I came home from the pool club but there was no one at home and I decided I was going to walk to my grandmother and it was already after 7pm,” she explained.
She said the man walked with her, although she “didn’t know him”. However, in Military Road he suddenly “attacked” her.
“He dragged me to the canal and as he was pulling me, I was beating him in the face,” she said with tears in her eyes.
“He pulled off my panty and began raping me from the back and front. He said when he was done raping me, he was going to dump my body in the canal. But I told myself, I cannot stop fighting because I can't let him finish me.”
Her desperate screams were heard by a passer-by who stopped but couldn’t make out what was going on in the dark.
She said her attacker “stopped”, and that was enough for her to escape.
“When he knelt down, pulling up his pants, I kicked him in the face. I grabbed my panty and my pants and ran to my grandmother’s home.”
The child’s aunt, 37, said they were horrified when the hysterical child arrived home “naked and bruised”.
“She kept saying he raped me’. She was naked and only dressed in her pink jacket,” the aunt said.
The family is now praying for the rape accused to be jailed “forever”.
Daily Voice