Durban - It was her indomitable will that saved a six-year-old girl from death after she was raped, allegedly by her uncle, stabbed nine times with a spear and left for dead this week.
On Saturday, the Grade 1 pupil, stitched from her chest down to her stomach, her hands bandaged and heavily sedated, lay in a hospital bed at Durban’s Prince Mshiyeni Memorial hospital.
The girl cannot be named because she is a minor and a rape victim.
In a shocking turn of events, neither the girl’s mother nor her grandmother want the 18-year-old suspect arrested. They want him to remain free because he is mentally unstable and because his arrest would deprive them of an income - his disability grant.
The six-year-old was on her way to school, some 40 minutes from home, walking alone through a sugarcane field near the KwaMbovu Reserve in Umbumbulu, when she was attacked by her 18-year-old uncle, who had followed her. According to a police source, he then raped her, stabbed her nine times with a spear and ran off.
Her grandmother, with whom both she and her uncle live, said she saw the girl walking through the cane fields, but when she called out to her there was no response.
“I went to check if she was still there, but I couldn’t see her. All I could hear was a voice say ‘ngiyafa ngiyafa’ (I’m dying, I’m dying). I ran to her and found her covered in blood.”
She said she first took the girl to Odidini clinic in Umbumbulu, and she was later transferred to Prince Mshiyeni Memorial hospital.
A source close to police investigators claimed this is the second time the uncle had raped the girl, the first being in February last year. However, provincial police spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Vincent Mdunge could not confirm this.
Strangely enough, the girl’s mother wants the rape and attempted murder charges against her brother dropped.
She said, “I don’t want him to go to jail because he is going to get all kinds of diseases. We are siblings and he is sick. I know what he has done, but I don’t want him to go to jail.”
The grandmother, who has been caring for the girl since she was three months old, also wants the charges against her son dropped because she won’t receive the monthly grant of R1 200 if he is locked up.
“He has been sick since last year and he is currently on medication. If he gets arrested, I won’t get a grant. They are both in my care, her mother left her when she was three months old. I know what he has done is wrong, but they shouldn’t have arrested him,” she said.
Director of child rights organisation Bobbi Bear, Jackie Branfield, said: “I don’t care who he is, what he suffers from and how old he is, he must be held accountable. To repeatedly rape a five-year-old and to only be caught a year later, this time trying to kill her, is just wrong. I don’t care, he must face the judge and justice must be seen to be done.”
Police spokesman Vincent Mdunge confirmed the incident. “The 18-year-old suspect was arrested and charged with attempted murder,” said Mdunge. He will appear in the Umbumbulu Magistrate’s Court tomorrow.
In a similar incident, Mjabulo Nyawo, 27, was given two life sentences in the Empangeni Regional Court on Friday for the rape of his three- and nine-year-old nieces.
“On October 10, 2011, two girls from the Mgazi area outside Empangeni were sent by their aunt to borrow a charger from their uncle,” said Mdunge. When the girls went into the man’s house, he raped them.
“The accused sent them back home with a cellphone charger and the nine-year-old victim reported the matter to her aunt.”
Nyawo was arrested on November 26, 2011.
“This is a victory not only for the SAPS, but for all vulnerable women and children in this country,” provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Mmamonnye Ngobeni said. “The court could not have passed a more fitting sentence and this will certainly send out a strong message to other criminals.” - Sunday Tribune