INLSA

Family of the deceased. Photo: Ayanda Ndamane

Relatives and friends gathered inside a one-bedroomed house to say a prayer and pay their respects to the family of an eight-year-old girl brutally beaten and stabbed to death by another relative in Grabouw.

He is under arrest.

The eight-year-old and her 12-year-old sister were left alone in the early hours of Saturday by their 28-year-old older sister.

Both girls were allegedly raped, stabbed and beaten by an intruder, who lived no further than two doors away from the victims’ home at Side View informal settlement in Grabouw. They were placed in the care of their older sister four months ago after both their parents went to work in Citrusdal.

The older sister, 28, sat with tears in her eyes and said: “I was next door and I left them watching TV. When I went back later to go and sleep, I went to the room, switched on the lights and saw them with the blood on the bed.”

She said she thought both of her siblings were dead, but before she could run out to tell the neighbours, the 12-year-old told her what had happened.

She said: “They heard someone break the back window and the person was in the house. She told me the man came in with a hammer, he switched on the music so that no one would hear. He choked them so they wouldn’t scream and then hit them both with the hammer and started stabbing them with the knife.”

She alerted neighbours and called for an ambulance. Relatives in the area called the parents. “I’m not doing well, I haven’t been able to eat...”

The girl’s father said their mother started crying hysterically when they received the news of their daughter’s murder and asked a family member to fetch them.

“When I came she was still on the bed, but we took the other one to the hospital in Somerset West.”

He said the daughter taken to hospital was admitted for multiple stab wounds. She was still recovering from the one in her back and one in her face.

“I want justice to be done for my daughter. I want him to rot in jail,” the father said.

A community leader explained how they were forced to call the police as the community was outraged by what had happened and wanted to take the law into their own hands.

“Members of the community started breaking the windows of the accused’s house. They managed to get in and started burning his and his mother’s things.

“The community was angry because he was a family member and always played with the children. We really didn’t expect this from him and don’t know what would cause him to do such a thing,” he said.

Police spokesman November Filander said they arrested the 22-year-old man on a road just outside Grabouw on Saturday morning.

“We also retrieved the murder weapon.”

The suspect is to appear in the Grabouw Magistrate’s Court on Monday.

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