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A child with her head in her hands.
Photo: Pixabay

Child killings: two minors killed in separate cases over bloody weekend

The killing of innocent children in SA is on the rise, and recent incidents demonstrate a sickening pattern of behaviour

minor kzn oral sex

A child with her head in her hands.
Photo: Pixabay

The scourge of violence against South Africa’s children continues after the separate deaths of a four-year old girl and a newborn baby over the weekend, both deaths allegedly coming at the hands of the victim’s own parents. 

Limpopo parents kill four-year-old. 

A 28-year-old man was arrested and charged with murder after allegedly strangling his four-year-old step-daughter in Mokopane, Limpopo, over the weekend. 

The man handed himself over to police after his step-daughter, who went to bed following the violent altercation but failed to wake up the next day, was discovered lifeless. 

A preliminary investigation into the murder found that the girl’s mother had allowed the attack to happen, watching on as her boyfriend became irritated by the child’s attempts to play with him.  

“The fatal assault allegedly started when the woman’s boyfriend, who is not the biological father to the child, allegedly became agitated when the child started playing on him,” said police spokesperson Brigadier Motlafela Mojapelo. 

“He then took a cellphone cable charger and started assaulting the child in the presence of her mother, who apparently did nothing to stop the assault and thereby making herself complicit in the attack.”

The mother was arrested later on Sunday. 

The couple allowed the “severely injured” child to go to sleep and only realised the extent of their crime the following day. 

The Provincial Commissioner of the South African Police Service in Limpopo Lieutenant General Nneke Jim Ledwaba said that parents had a responsibility to their children to keep them away from harm, and said that in this “shameful” incidence, this had not been done. 

“Parents are called upon to play a daily vital role of providing security to their children at all instances and not subject them brutal assaults,” said Ledwaba.

The pair will appear at Mokopane magistrate’s court on Tuesday for their first appearance. 

Durban mother strangles new-born.

In another incident, a Durban mother was arrested after a new-born baby boy was discovered concealed in a dumpster in Westville. 

Responding to the incident, police made their way to the mother’s apartment, where they discovered a horrific scene consisting of an umbilical chord discarded in a bucket. 

It was later determined that this child, too, was strangled. 

“At the scene, police conducted an investigation and it led them to a specific flat on Candela Road,” said police spokesperson Colonel Thembeka Mbele.

“Police officers made the gruesome discovery of an umbilical cord inside a bucket in the flat.  Further investigation revealed that the baby was strangled and dumped inside the bin. A case of murder was then opened at Cato Manor SAPS”.

The mother will appear at Durban Magistrate’s court on Tuesday. 

Last year’s Crime Stats report showed that the number of children killed in South Africa had increased to 1014 (up 2.9%), meaning about 3 children die every day as a result of murder.