MAN (67) DENIES PATERNITY, KILLS 2 SONS

MANZINI – The innocent lives of two children aged four and six were ended tragically by their mother’s 67-year-old boyfriend, who strangled and further forced them to ingest a poisonous substance.

The boyfriend, who is a security guard, in one of the companies in Manzini, claimed that he was not their biological father. There were three children in the house and one aged 11, is said to have survived. The appalling act of violence is believed to have happened in the early hours of Thursday morning at the man’s rented flat at New Village.

Police officers reportedly retrieved the boys’ bodies from the flat yesterday morning, upon getting a report from their mother. This horrific crime has left the community of New Village in shock and disbelief, with many residents and neighbours struggling to comprehend such a heinous act.

This murder happened at a time when law enforcers recently released a report that from January this year, 147 people have been murdered in the country. From these, some of the murders are a result of gender-based violence (GBV), while others were murdered for frivolous reasons.

Meanwhile, according to a neighbour, the man used to live with his partner (the mother of the deceased) before she left early this year and went to live at her place with their children in Matsapha. She disclosed that the children would now and again pay their father a visit in the absence of their mother.

Cries

The neighbour disclosed that on Thursday at around 2am, she heard the cries of a child screaming and calling his father. She detailed that there was a commotion in the house which lasted momentarily. On that same morning, before 5am, she revealed that she heard a burglar door at her neighbour’s house being open. “I thought to myself he was taking the children back to their mother since they are attending school. There was silence and until later where he came back in the afternoon, went inside the house and then out,” she narrated.

The neighbour relayed that each time he made the visits in and out of the house, the security guard would lock. She told this publication that at around 9pm on Thursday, police officers arrived at the man’s rented flat in the presence of the minors’ mother. She said they found him sleeping when they knocked on the door. The neighbour revealed that they later returned yesterday morning to retrieve the bodies of the minors in the house.

“Apparently on Wednesday, the man told the 11-year-old boy to go to his mother’s flat while he remained with the other boys who he suspected were not his. This is when the boy informed his mother that his father was going to kill his siblings. The mother then informed the police, who later came to New Village to ascertain if they were still alive,” the neighbour said.

Officers

She elaborated that when the officers of the law arrived, they were heard asking where the other children were and the man told them that they were inside. The neighbour revealed that although the couple had a strained relationship, the mother did not ever imagine that the children would be negatively affected in this manner, as she would send them to see their father.

“He was a quiet man and did not talk much. He would not be seen with any other woman, but the mother of his children before they separated,” said the neighbour. She said after the police had arrived, they immediately informed their landlord, who was in South Africa. The neighbours expressed their distraught by the incident which left them traumatised and disheartened by the loss of lives of children who had a future.

Deputy Police Information and Communications Officer Inspector Nosipho Mnguni confirmed the incident where two minors were found dead after they were reportedly strangled and made to ingest a poisonous substance at New Village. She revealed that the suspect was in police custody.

Murder incidents are becoming a norm in the country, with the most recent incident being that of an 18-year-old mother who was arrested for allegedly slitting open her newborn’s throat soon after she gave birth to her. The incident happened at Galathiya under Hlatikhulu in the Shiselweni Region.

Also, recently, residents of Ngwane Park were reeling from shock after the tragic murder and suicide of Nosipho Dube and her husband, Mandisi Khanyile. Dube died after she was said to have been shot by her husband who later turned the gun on himself, in full view of their children. In another incident, a deputy sheriff reportedly shot dead four women in Ezulwini on suspicions of infidelity. 

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