Cape Town - A Cape Flats mom who survived a knife attack by her husband is urging women to leave abusive relationships.
Stacey Petersen, 27, was stabbed 33 times while she held her seven-month-old baby in her arms.
Police have arrested her husband, Jamiel Petersen, 29, for attempted murder after he allegedly stabbed his wife repeatedly in the head and body using three knives.
Petersen appeared in the Wynberg Magistrate's Court this week where he abandoned his bail application and will now spend Christmas in Pollsmoor Prison as his case has been postponed to 18 January.
The couple have been together since Stacey was 15 and got married two years ago.
Eight years ago, Stacey gave birth to their first child, Akheem.
Picture: Daily Voice
“The abuse was coming on for years and because I was an orphan and didn’t have a family and wanted a family for my child, I stayed,” she tells the Daily Voice.
“He would hit me and kick me and we had to leave Elsies River because the neighbours reported him to social workers.”
Picture: Daily Voice
Last year, she became pregnant with twins, Waqeel and Jaqeel, but was admitted to Tygerberg Hospital in February where she gave birth at just five months due to a seizure.
“It was all the stress and he also hit me while I was pregnant. The twins were born premature and they weighed 700 and 800 grams each,” she says.
Three months ago, the couple moved to Stacey’s aunt in Steenberg where they stayed in a Wendy house in the backyard.
She says on 3 November, they had an argument and Jamiel was locked out, but he jumped over the gate and attacked her.
“I had Jaqeel in my arms and he came in with a knife. I turned to protect the child but he stabbed me in the back and the knife broke inside me,” says Stacey.
“I was on the floor but I got away. I went into the Wendy but he jumped through the window and came back with two knives and stabbed me over and over in the head.”
Jamiel ran away and relatives rushed her to Retreat Day Hospital.
Her family say Jamiel came to the hospital but ran away again when he saw police there. He was later arrested in Hillview.
Stacey says she is struggling to care for her two babies as she cannot hold them because her right hand is lame, while her 33 knife wounds have been stitched shut.
She now wants to warn others to get out of abusive relationships.
“I don’t care what happens to him inside [jail] because he didn’t think twice about what he did to me and my kids,” she says.
“Don’t be blinded by love because you go through abuse. Look where it got me; I nearly died.”