The family has since demanded 15 cattle from the families
of the two accused girls, the one who supplied the knife and the one who delivered
the fatal blow.
Buhlebenkosi Moyo died on 28 October after a fight which
police say was over a boyfriend but the families disputed that and said it was
over books.
She was buried last Wednesday in the absence of the two
accused girl’s families who snubbed the ceremony.
The Moyo family says body viewing had to be scrapped as her
body was at an advanced state of decomposition.
Investigations by Sunday News have revealed that although the body of
Buhlebenkosi was transported all the way from Nkayi to Bulawayo for postmortem,
it was never done.
Sunday News visited the family homestead on Thursday and
found the girl’s father away as he was said to have accompanied the late girl`s
mother to her family homestead.
Buhlebenkosi`s mother who is based in South Africa had come
to the country for the funeral. From the family and community members’ account,
events leading to the death of the girl and what transpired after could be a
perfect script for an award winning movie.
An uncle to the late Thokozani Secondary School pupil, Mr
Joburt Moyo said events leading to the death of his niece started on 25 October
when the girls fought at the school.
“I was building a house at my brother`s homestead and the
girl who supplied the knife came and told me that she had been sent by her
elders (names withheld to protect the identity of the accused minors) to show
him the injuries she had suffered during a fight with Buhle. I asked her why
they were fighting but she just mumbled. I then told her to report the matter to
the teachers so that they could address the problem since it started when they
were at school.
“Then on Saturday on 30 October Buhlebenkosi went to the
grinding mill owned by a relative of the girl who supplied the knife and when
she got there she was interrogated over the fighting.
Our daughter had to abandon the bag of maize there as the
person did not accept that his granddaughter is the one who started the fight
and she was only forced to defend herself.
She reported to her grandmother on arrival what had
transpired and was troubled by the interrogation as the person had also asked
ukuthi usithathangaphi isibindi sokutshaya omunye umntwana umkhiphe igazi(Where
do you get the guts to beat our daughter until she bleeds),”said Mr Moyo.
He said Buhlebenkosi`s grandmother, Mrs Siluzile Moyo then
sent other children to fetch the bag and although concerned with the escalation
of the issue did not think it could lead to death.
Mr Moyo said the family was shocked when they received the
news of the stabbing on Thursday and Buhlebenkosi`s father rushed with a
wheelbarrow to the scene with the hope of rushing her to the clinic but found
her already dead.
“Our daughter died around 3pm and we had to hire a car to
fetch police officers at Gwelutshena Police Station as they had no car. They
only arrived at the scene around 11pm due to distance and took statements.
From the statement given to police in our presence, the
girl who had the knife said she carried it to school for days before our
daughter was stabbed.
“She had stab wounds on the hands, nose, and mouth and on
her left breast and the blade broke and remained stuck inside. We spent more
than 24 hours with the body at the scene waiting for the police vehicle to it
for a post-mortem.
The car came at 4pm on Friday.
“We are told they had challenges putting the body in the
mortuary at Nkayi District Hospital and Inyathi Hospital mortuary as the
mortuaries were said to have broken down. We also understand the police car
transporting the body broke down at Ngwigwizi River and they spent the night
there with the body and only reached Bulawayo on Monday when the body was
already at an advanced state of decomposition. Buhlebenkosi`s mother came from
South Africa after the tragedy .She saw the body at UBH and said maggots were
feeding on it,” said Mr Moyo.
The body was later collected by a local funeral parlour. He
said the pathologist who was supposed to attend to the body “did not touch her
and we buried amathambo (bones) with the knife still lodged in her body”.
Mr Moyo said while the body was in the police, they met as
a family and demanded that the families of two girls who stabbed their daughter
and the one who supplied the knife compensate them with 15 cattle.
“The two families did not come to mourn with us and we had
to summon them to our homestead where we put our demand to them as we felt
disrespected.
The family whose daughter killed our child has already
brought six cows while the other family is yet to. We buried our daughter in
their absence but we are in great fear of what will befall us due to the
unremoved knife blade,” he said.
The grandmother, Mrs Siluzile Moyo, said she passed out on
receiving news about the death of her granddaughter who only returned home from
South Africa in September after having gone there when schools closed due to
Covid-19. She said the three were friends and would spend time together.
“After her death they sent some people to come and inform
me. When they broke news I just went blank. I regained strength and staggered
to the scene to find my granddaughter long gone. I am the one who raised her
and she was an ever smiling child. She did not deserve to die under those circumstances,”
she said as she burst into tears.
She denied the allegations that the fight was over a
boyfriend as the said boyfriend was Buhlebenkosi`s blood relative.
Historian and cultural expert Mr Pathisa Nyathi said the
family was right to be concerned about the knife which was not removed as the
spirit of the girl may come back to haunt the family.
“Generally no metallic object can be buried with a body
even items like buttons, rings, some styles done in the head are removed from
the body before burial. It is worse in this case because you are talking about
part of a knife which was buried with the body.
“The girl`s spirit will be a troubled and angered one which
can spell doom for the family. There seems to be a bigger issue than the knife
which doctors did not remove from the body,” he said.
Bulawayo provincial medical director Dr Maphios Siamuchembu
apologized to the Moyo family over the pain they have been put through by
failure to remove the knife.
“My opinion is that this post-mortem was either not done at
all or it was done inadequately. As a Ministry we owe this family an apology. I
appreciate the difficulties that our staff work under sometimes, but our
community deserves the best from us under the circumstances. The very least
would have been to explain the findings or the difficulties encountered that
prevented the procedure to the family,” said Dr Siamuchembu.
He said his office will carry out thorough investigations
with the aim of solving such occurrences in future.
A relative to the girl who supplied the knife said they
will pay the cows that were demanded by the Moyo family as they fear uzimu/ngozi
(avenging spirits).
“I am not in a good state of mind to talk about this issue
but I want to believe that had we as parents addressed the matter when it began
we could have avoided this. Now that it has happened so many stories are flying
all over and as a family it is affecting us.
We will pay what the Moyo family demanded .We are close
relatives with them and this has made us prisoners and we are at their mercy,”
said the relative.
Police said they were investigating the matter and culprits
will soon be brought to court. Chronicle
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