Another killing shocks Madombidzha

The residents of Madombidzha village were left shocked in the wake of a murder where a Zimbabwean man was stabbed to death in the street.

It is alleged that the two men who originally came from Zimbabwe were walking in the street at around 19:00 a fortnight ago. They were apparently approached by two other men, whereafter one of them was attacked and stabbed with a screwdriver.

According to the spokesperson for the Tshilwavhusiku police, Sgt Thilivhali Maloa, the police were alerted to the incident and responded quickly.

“We found a male victim lying dead on the ground at a certain street,” she said. “He had been stabbed in the chest with a screwdriver by known suspects. He sustained severe injuries which could possibly have led to his death.”

She indicated that the deceased was later identified as Samuel Tapfumana Makumbe.

The police’s investigations led to the arrest of the first suspect, Simon Rasta Moyo (20). Moyo was charged with murder and had since appeared in the Tshilwavhusiku Magistrate's Court on 2 November, where his case was postponed to today (13 November). The second suspect is still at large.

The chairperson for the Zimbabwean community in Limpopo, Mr Gift Eglone, had expressed his disappointment with the people who opted to fight and end up committing murders when there were differences between them.

“They should make an effort to contact us if they have any challenges,” he said. “We will see and put to scale the matter and, if their problems need the police's intervention, we will refer it to the police. As the Zimbabwean community we want to put the point forward that we work hand in glove with the police and other departments or structures, which promotes peace, safety and security here in South Africa and everywhere on the continent. When we look we might find out that they killed each other over nothing – I mean a small matter which could have been resolved.”

Vhamusanda Vho-Ntsundeni Sinthumule said that he was appalled by the incident where a foreigner killed his own countryman in a foreign land. “This is so disturbing because it all comes down on our shoulders as community leaders, and this gives us a bad name – that we are killing one another,” he said. “We had experienced similar cases in the past, where foreigners killed each other. However, it had all stopped after we had made a public announcement where we instructed all our traditional leaders to document all foreigners for influx control and crime-prevention purposes.”

Vho-Sinthumule said that a public announcement would be made for all foreigners to be registered or documented at the local traditional leaders' offices.

Eglone can be contacted at 071 083 0867.

Date:13 November 2015

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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